Hearst  Fountain 


tc//. 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME 


BIBLE    TEACHINQS 


CONCERNING     ITS 


REWARDS  AND  PUNISHMENTS. 


BY  A  LAYMAN. 


"The  wages  of  sin  is  death,  but  the  gift  of  God  is  eternal  life  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." — Rom.  6:23. 


OAKLAND,  CAL.: 

PUBLISHED  BY  THE  AUTHOR. 
1884. 

^  *4 


ENTERED  ACCORDING  TO  ACT  OF  CONGRESS  IN  THE  YEAR  1884, 
BY  E.  C.  WILLIAMS. 

IN  THE  OFFICE  OF  THE  LIBRARIAN  OF  CONGRESS,  AT  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


PREFACE. 


ERRATA. 


Page  16,  fourth  line  from  bottom,  leave  out  "are." 

63,  eleventh  line  from  top,  "skat hath"  should  be  shachath 


but  through  faithful,  loving  service  to  their  Lord,  to  make  that 
life  fuller  and  richer  in  bliss  through  the  rewards  meted  out 
by  him  for  such  service.  (See  Matt.  10  :  42.)  And  last  and 
greatest,  to  claim  for  Jesus  Christ  that  which  the  religious 
teachings  of  the  age,  if  not  formally,  impliedly  deny  to  him, 
but  which  he  emphatically  asserts  to  be  his  sole  prerogative, 
the  power  to  confer  immortality  upon  men.  John  5  :  24,  29 
and  10 :  28.  If  there  is  truth  in  these  pages,  that  God  will 
use  it  for  his  glory;  if  error,  that  he  will  overrule  it  to  the  same 
end,  is  the  earnest  prayer  of  the  AUTHOR. 


679896 


PREKACK. 


HE  writer  of  this  little  book  asks  only  for  a  prayerful, 
unprejudiced  investigation  of  its  subject  matter  from  the 
Bible  standpoint,  regardless  of  creeds,  and  systems, 
and  teachings  of  men.  It  is  unnecessary  for  him  to  say  that 
he  possesses  no  literary  ability,  for  one  will  scarcely  read  this 
short  preface  without  making  that  discovery. 

His  purpose  in  giving  these  pages  to  the  public  is  three- 
fold. First,  to  bring  to  the  attention  of  the  learned  and  influ- 
ential of  our  religious  teachers,  the  impressions  which  the 
language  of  the  Bible,  understood  in  the  sense  generally  at- 
tached to  it  in  ordinary  use,  makes  upon  a  person  of  common 
intelligence,  who,  sincerely  desiring  to  know  the  truth,  seeks  it 
at  the  Fountain  Head,  in  humble  dependence  upon  the  prom- 
ised guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  And  for  a  second  object, 
to  strengthen  the  faith  and  comfort  the  hearts  of  believers  in 
general,  to  stimulate  them  not  only  to  secure  a  life  without  end, 
but  through  faithful,  loving  service  to  their  Lord,  to  make  that 
life  fuller  and  richer  in  bliss  through  the  rewards  meted  out 
by  him  for  such  service.  (See  Matt.  10  :  42.)  And  last  and 
greatest,  to  claim  for  Jesus  Christ  that  which  the  religious 
teachings  of  the  age,  if  not  formally,  impliedly  deny  to  him, 
but  which  he  emphatically  asserts  to  be  his  sole  prerogative, 
the  power  to  confer  immortality  upon  men.  John  $  :  24,  29 
and  10 :  28.  If  there  is  truth  in  these  pages,  that  God  will 
use  it  for  his  glory;  if  error,  that  he  will  overrule  it  to  the  same 
end,  is  the  earnest  prayer  of  the  AUTHOR. 


679896 


INDEX. 


CHAPTER  I.  Gen.  3  :22:  And  now  lest  he  take  of  the  Tree  of  Life 
and  eat  and  live  forever.  Gen.  2:7:  And  man  became  a  living 
soul  in  connection  with  Gen.  I  :  20,  21-24;  Lev.  n  :  10,  and  Eze. 
47  '•  9 • Page  7 

CHAPTER  II.  Definition  of  the  words  "life"  and  "death."  Languageto 
be  intelligible  must  be  constant  in  its  meaning.  Life  the  same  for 
the  Creator  as  for  the  creature.  Eze.  18:  The  soul  mortal. 
Spiritual  life  and  death,  as  the  terms  are  used,  impossible.  There 
is  no  spiritual  life  except  from  Jesus  Christ Page  17 

CHAPTER  III.  John  6  :  57,  58:  The  HvingGoA.  The  work  of  Moses 
in  providing  manna  rescued  and  sustained  the  life  of  the  body. 
The  work  of  Jesus  redeems  and  sustains  the  life  of  the  soul,  also. 
Zoe  aionios  does  not  mean  holiness  and  felicity.  "Becatise  I  live." 
According  to  all  natural  law,  the  same  principle  of  life  that  is  in 
God  will  be  found  in  his  offspring.  Man  has  no  life  in  himself. 
All  he  has  is  from  without Page  25 

CHAPTER  IV.  Some  objections  to  the  foregoing  definitions  considered. 
Eph.  2  :  I  and  Col.  2  :  13:  "  The  wages  of  sin  is  death."  Evan- 
gelical definition  of  eternal  life.  Inconsistencies  of  such  a  defini- 
tion   Page  33 

CHAPTER  V.  Our  definition  of  life  confirmed  by  Heb.  7  123,  and 
other  texts.  Death  the  opposite  of  life.  Spiritual  death  as  de- 
fined in  Chapter  II,  not  the  penalty  for  sin.  Rebellion  against  an 
earthly  government  not  physical  death:  neither  is  rebellion  against 
God  eternal  death.  No  condition  pertaining  to  a  living  being  is 
either  its  life  or  its  death.  What  death  meant  to  Job,  David,  and 
Hezekiah,  and  how  they  regarded  the  future  state Page  45 

CHAPTER  VI.  The  figures  and  metaphors  of  Scripture  agree  with  our 
definition.  Fire  the  most  common  figure  used  in  connection  with 
the  doom  of  the  wicked.  Prolonged  suffering  not  denoted  by  any 
Hebrew  word  used  in  this  connection.  Pentecost  not  the  baptism 

(v) 


vi  INDEX. 


of  fire  of  Matt.  3:  n,  12.  Parable  of  tares  and  wheat.  Greek 
for  "burn  up."  "  Their  worm  dieth  not."  Mark  9  :  43.  "  God  a 
consuming  fire."  2  Thess.  I  19.  The  meaning  of  perish  in  the 
Old  Testament.  Its  meaning  in  the  New  Testament Page  60 

CHAPTER  VII.  Matt.  25:46  considered.  Parable  of  the  rich  man 
and  Lazarus.  Rev/ 14  :  1 1. Page  76- 

CHAPTER  VIII.  The  death  threatened  at  such  places  as  Eze.  18  :$r 
John  8  :  24,  Rom.  8:13,  has  no  significance  if  the  orthodox  defi- 
nition of  death  is  accepted.  Is  the  soul  of  man  immortal  ?  The 
answer  of  the  Bible  is,  No Page  83. 

CHAPTER  IX.  Former  hopes  not  destroyed  without  giving  something 
in  return.  No  conflict  between  the  doctrine  of  the  destruction  of 
the  sinner,  and  the  character  of  God  as  seen  in  his  word  and  works* 
but,  on  the  contrary,  his  unity  declared.  The  a.i  m  of  revelation  .to 
re-establish  faith  in  man.  Faith  towards  God  exercised  by  Old 
Testament  believers,  and  faith  towards  God  to  be  exercised  by  us. 
Impolitic  to  assert  that  Old  Testament  saints  believed  in  Jesus 
Christ.  Many  may  be  partakers  of  the  benefits  of  his  salvation 
who  never  heard  his  name Page  90 

CHAPTER  X.  Stumbling  blocks.  Perversions  of  Scripture.  Province 
of  human  reason  in  relation  to  religious  truth.  Objections  to  the 
Bible  on  the  ground  that  it  awards  endless  torments  to  so  large  a 
proportion  of  the  race.  The  destruction  of  the  wicked  necessitates 
no  positive  interposition  of  God.  Distinction  between  penalty  for 
sin,  and  the  results  of  sin.  Objected  that  destruction  is  a  release 
from  suffering.  Objected  that  our  doctrine  enco  urages  sin .  Page  102 

CHAPTER  XI.  Eternal  life  a  free  gift,  but  the  con  ditions  pertaining  to  it 
may  be  influenced  by  man.  Hope  of  reward  a  powerful  and  legit- 
imate stimulus  to  active  religion.  The  Roman  Catholics  wiser  in 
this  respect  than  Protestants.  The  begetting  from  above  necessarily 
confers  eternal  life,  but  not  consummate  bliss.  The  attractiveness 
of  Heaven  not  taken  away  or  lessened.  He  that  doeth  the  will  of 
God  abideth.  The  last  enemy  to  be  destroyed.  The  place  given 
by  the  apostles  to  the  resurrection  of  our  Lord  confirms  our  posi- 
tion. No  necessary  connection  bet  ween  it  and  holiness  and  happi- 
ness. Jesus  Christ  a  Saviour  from  sin  and  death.  I  Cor.  15  :  54. 
His  kingdom  everlasting Page  115 


CHAPTER    I. 


FTER  deciding  that  the  Bible  is  a  revelation  from 
God  of  man's  relation  to  him  as  the  Creator,  and  of 
his  purposes  regarding  the  race,  any  one  who  seeks 
to  learn  from  its  pages  what  those  purposes  are, 
must  first  of  all  settle  the  meaning  of  these  two  words, 
"  life,"  "  death,"  for  since  to  teach  men  how  to  attain  the 
one  and  avoid  the  other,  is  the  main  purpose  of  this 
revelation,  if  any  ambiguity  attaches  to  these  words,  the 
whole  Bible  must  necessarily  be  to  the  same  degree  am- 
biguous. 

If  the  student  is  content  to  rest  his  knowledge  of 
Scripture  truth  upon  the  opinion  of  others,  it  will  be 
comparatively  easy,  and  to  a  degree  profitable,  to  take 
some  commentator  of  acknowledged  piety  and  learningj 
and  follow  where  he  leads  the  way.  The  searcher  for 
truth  may  be  sure  that  he  shall  find  a  well-beaten  path 
for  his  feet,  leading  through  smiling  fields,  and  beside 
still  waters;  while  every  now  and  again  from  some  jut- 
ting headland,  he  shall  get  a  glimpse  of  the  gates  of 
pearl,  and  almost  hear  the  songs  of  triumph  from  the 
blessed  ones  who  have  passed  within  these  heavenly  por- 
tals. This  journey  may  prove  very  enjoyable,  but  the 
traveler  will  fail  of  attaining  that  vigor  and  energy 
which,  in  religious  character,  as  in  physical  development, 

(7) 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 


come  only  from  exercise.  Better,  it  seems  to  me,  to 
take  the  word  itself,  relying  upon  the  promise  of  God 
to  guide  us  into  the  truth.  It  is  true  that  at  the  first 
we  may  feel  called  upon  to  clear  up  those  hidden  things 
which  belong  to  God,  and  only  learn  our  error  when 
upon  some  dizzy  height,  from  which  we  dare  not  turn 
our  downward  look,  we  see  still  above  us  altitudes 
to  which  no  seraph's  wing  may  hope  to  soar,  and  hum- 
bly retrace  our  steps  to  lower  levels.  Or,  it  may  be 
that  we  shall  try  to  sound  the  deep  things  of  God,  and 
through  days  and  weeks  keep  on  adding  piece  after 
piece  to  our  short  line  of  investigation,  till  at  last  we 
learn  that  no  finite  understanding  can  hope  to  fathom 
the  depths  of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  the  Infi- 
nite. But  these  attempts,  though  unsuccessful,  if  made 
in  a  reverential,  filial  spirit,  will  not  have  been  fruitless. 
We  will  have  learned  more  of  God  than  we  knew 
before,  and  for  a  child  of  God,  this  is  to  be  drawn 
nearer  to  him,  and  become  more  like  him. 

It  is  also  true  that  the  course  of  study  advocated 
may  be  marked  by  slow  progress,  but  what  advance  is 
made  will  be  in  the  direction  best  suited  to  the  learner's 
need.  The  word  of  God  is  the  food  by  which  our  relig- 
ious natures  are  to  be  nourished  and  developed;  and 
as  that  which  some  require  for  healthy  growth  physic- 
ally is  unnecessary  or  even  harmful  to  others,  and  each, 
if  he  expects  health  and  sustenance,  must  select  that 
which  his  system  demands,  and  avoid  that  which  dis- 
agrees with  it;  so  the  table  which  God  in  his  word  has 
spread  for  his  children,  has  every  variety  which  any  one 
can  need, — milk  for  babes,  strong  meat  for  those  of 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  9 

larger  growth,  reproof  for  the  presumptuous,  caution  for 
the  unwary,  promises  for  the  discouraged,  reproof  for 
the  careless,  rest  for  the  weary,  and  the  all-loving,  all- 
sufficient  Christ  for  every  human  need.  But  to  this 
table  so  bountifully  spread  by  their  Father,  God's  chil- 
dren must  come,  and  each,  for  himself,  take  that  which 
his  personal  needs  demand,  not  trusting  to  some  stray 
crumb  from  the  hand  of  another,  unsuited,  perhaps,  to 
his  wants,  and  insufficient  in  supply.  The  Bible,  under 
the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  furnishes  the  food  for 
our  religious  life,  and,  like  our  material  nourishment,  this 
food  must  be  taken  and  assimilated  by  each  one  for  him- 
self, if  he,  is  to  progress  far  beyond  the  stage  of  infancy. 

Under  what,  at  the  time,  appeared  to  the  writer  a 
very  trying  providence,  he  was  compelled  to  leave  his 
family,  and  sojourn  for  several  years  in  an  extremely 
isolated  condition,  when  prompted,  he  trusts,  by  the 
Holy  Spirit,  he  was,  in  the  many  leisure  hours  at  his 
command,  led  to  seek  to  know  for  himself  what  the 
teachings  of  God's  word  were.  And  with  no  human 
help  save  Alford's  New  Testament  for  English  readers, 
and  Cruden's  Concordance,  he  began  the  study  of  the 
Bible,  relying  upon  the  promises,  "  If  any  man  will  do 
his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,"  and  "  if  he  lack 
wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God,  and  it  shall  be  given  him." 

As  before  stated,  it  seemed  imperative  that  the  mean- 
ing of  these  two  words,  "  life  "  and  "  death,"  should  be 
clearly  defined  before  a  satisfactory  study  of  the  Bible 
could  be  pursued.  Whatever  definition  is  given  to 
"  life,"  we  must  adopt  its  contrary  as  the  meaning  of 
"death,"  and  the  converse  of  this  is  equally  true.  And 


io  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

more  than  this,  we  must  adopt  such  definitions  for 
both  as  will  make  the  Bible  intelligible  and  harmonious 
as  a  whole,  so  far  as  man's  relation  to  God,  and  his 
duties  and  hopes  growing  out  of  this  relation,  are  the 
subject.  Diplomats  may  think  and  say  that  language 
is  made  to  conceal  the  meaning  of  the  speaker,  but  it 
is  incredible  that  God  should  give  to  man  a  revelation 
concerning  matters  of  such  momentous  import,  in  lan- 
guage of  doubtful  or  uncertain  meaning.  The  above 
had  been  written  years  before  the  following  from  the 
pen  of  the  late  Daniel  Webster  met  my  eye.  He  says: 
"  I  believe  the  Bible  is  to  be  understood  and  received 
in  the  plain  and  obvious  meaning  of  its  passages.  Since 
I  cannot  persuade  myself  that  a  book  intended  for  the 
instruction  and  conversion  of  the  whole  world,  should 
cover  its  true  meaning  in  any  such  mystery  and  doubt 
that  none  but  critics  or  philosophers  can  discover  it." 
Aside  from  the  haze  in  which  the  teachings  of  the 
schools  have  enveloped  it,  every  one  understands  well 
enough  what  life  is  in  its  manifestations,  though  it  may 
well  be,  that  only  he  who  says  of  himself,  "  I  am  the 
life,"  knows,  or  ever  will  know,  what  it  is  in  its  essence. 
That  life  in  its  highest  sense,  or  eternal  life,  does  not 
mean,  as  the  evangelical  churches  teach,  a  renewal  of 
those  filial  relations  with  God  which  sin  had  interrupted, 
and  blessedness  consequent  upon  such  renewal,  seems, 
among  other  reasons,  apparent  from  the  precautions 
taken  by  God  after  the  fall  of  our  first  parents,  lest 
Adam  should  gain  access  to  the  "  tree  of  life  and  eat  and 
live  forever."  It  is  not  necessary  for  the  present  pur- 
pose that  we  determine,  or  even  imagine,  what  this  tree 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 


of  life  was.  Whatever  it  may  have  been,  the  Bible 
clearly  implies  that  it  was  accessible  to  Adam,  and  that, 
partaken  of,  its  effects  would  be  to  confer  upon  the  sin- 
ful pair  an  unending  life.  The  words  of  God  are,  "  And 
now,  lest  he  put  forth  his  hand  and  take  also  of  the  tree 
of  life,  and  eat  and  live  forever."  Gen.  3:22.  If,  as  the 
churches  teach,  eternal  life  means  the  return  of  man  in 
penitence  and  faith  to  God,  a  changed  character  and  the 
blessedness  resulting  from  God's  favor,  then  this  action 
on  the  part  of  God  is  utterly  at  variance  with  all  that 
he  tells  us  is  his  will  concerning  us,  and  with  all  his 
recorded  dealings  with  our  race.  Could  access  to  the 
tree  of  life  have  absolved  man  from  guilt,  re-implanted 
in  his  nature  a  love  for  God,  and  holy  proclivities  and 
actions,  God  certainly  would  not  so  carefully  have  cut 
off  all  approach  to  the  tree,  but,  on  the  contrary,  would 
have  made  haste  to  direct  the  fallen  man  to  its  healing 
virtues,  through  which,  not  only  would  the  evils  conse- 
quent upon  the  fall  be  repaired,  but  this  relation  once 
restored  should  continue  forever.  This  condition  of 
things  is  what  God  repeatedly  assures  us  is  just  what 
he  wishes  to  bring  about  (See  Eze.  18:32;  33:11;  2  Pet. 
3:9);  and  if  access  to  the  tree  of  life  could  have  accom- 
plished it,  all  the  subsequent  rebellion  of  the  race,  and 
the  humiliation  and  death  of  his  well-beloved  Son  could 
have  been  avoided.  The  meaning  of  the  expression 
"  live  forever,"  in  this  place,  is  made  plainer  by  compar- 
ing Deut.  32:40,  where  Jehovah  says,  "  I  lift  my  hand  to 
heaven  and  say,  I  live  forever."  What  God  asserts 
here,  regarding  himself,  is  the  eternal  duration  of  his 
being,  without  any  reference  to  his  moral  perfections 


12  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

so  in  Gen.  3:22,  where  the  same  expression  is  applied 
to  Adam,  it  must  mean  the  eternal  duration  of  his 
being,  without  any  reference  to  his  moral  character. 
And  with  this  understanding  of  the  language  there 
is  nothing  mysterious,  nothing  inconsistent  in  shutting  off 
from  Adam  all  approach  to  the  tree  of  life.  As  said 
before,  what  this  tree  of  life  was,  we  are  not  told,  nor 
need  we  be.  It  was  some  provision  made  by  the  Crea- 
tor availing  himself  of  which,  Adam,  had  he  passed  his 
probation  successfully,  would  have  secured  for  himself 
and  his  posterity  eternal  life.  By  eternal  life  I  wish 
to  be  understood  as  meaning  here,  and  throughout 
these  pages,  a  life  as  unending  as  is  that  which  God 
claims  for  himself  in  D?ut.  32:40,  where  he  says,  "I 
live  forever,"  with  no  reference  to  the  conditions  per- 
taining to  it.  There  was  now  danger  that  Adam 
might  turn  to  this  tree  of  life  as  a  remedy  for  the  ills  he 
had  brought  upon  himself  by  transgression,  and  become 
possessed  of  an  eternal  existence,  before  being  recon- 
ciled to  his  offended  Creator,  thus  perpetuating  forever 
a  deformed  and  marred  specimen  of  a  being  made  orig- 
inally very  good.  If  eternal  life  means  what  the  churches 
tell  us  it  means,  then  all  that  God  has  revealed  of  his 
own  glorious  character,  all  that  he  has  repeatedly  declared 
concerning  his  desire  that  the  wicked  shoulTf  turn  and 
live,  assures  us  that  he  would  at  once  have  pointed  out 
to  Adam  the  way  of  restoration  to  all  he  had  lost,  and 
bade  him  eat  and  live  forever.  Thus  the  work  of 
Satan  should  have  been  at  once  undone,  man  reinstated 
in  his  pristine  relation  to  God,  never  again  to  be  im- 
paired, and  Gethsemane,  and  Calvary  would  never  have 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  13 

astonished  the  angelic  beholders  with  their  awful   mys- 
teries. 

But  if  to  live  forever  means  just  that,  and 
nothing  else,  and  the  partaking  of  the  tree  of  life  by 
Adam  was  to  confer  eternal  life  upon  this  sinful  creat- 
ure and  all  his  posterity,  irrespective  of  their  return  to 
God,  and  submission  to  his  holy  will,  then  how  consist- 
ent is  God  with  himself,  and  with  all  his  declared  pur- 
poses respecting  the  race,  in  guarding  the  way  to  the  tree 
of  life.  Every  attribute  of  his  glorious  character  shines 
out  most  resplendently  from  this,  to  me,  otherwise  inex- 
plicable mystery;  and  from  the  flaming  sword,  turning 
every  way  to  keep  the  way  of  the  tree  of  life,  flashes 
forth  not  only  the  hatred  of  God  for  sin,  but  his  unspeak- 
able love  for  the  sinner;  not  only  his  inflexible  justice^ 
but  his  infinite  mercy.  In  cutting  man  off  from  eternal 
life  in  Eden,  equally  with  procuring  it  for  him  on  Cal- 
vary, is  it  true — 

"  Here  the  whole  Deity  is  known, 

Nor  dare  a  creature  guess 
Which  of  the  glories  brightest  shone, 
The  justice  or  the  grace." 

While  the  uniform  declaration  of  Scripture  is  that 
it  is  the  will  of  God  that  men  should  escape  from  death 
and  obtain  eternal  life,  the  condition  precedent  just  as 
uniformly  is,  that  they  must  come  back  to  him  in  sincere 
repentance  and  humble  faith;  and  for  Adam  to  have 
become  possessed  of  eternal  life  by  eating  of  the  tree  of 
life  without  first  turning  to  God  in  repentance  and  faith} 
would  have  subverted  God's  plans,  and  accomplished 
what  Satan  apparently  had  in  view, — the  perpetuation 


14  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

of  a  portion,  at  least,  of  the  race,  eternally  existent,  and, 
like  himself,  eternally  at  enmity  with  God  and  all  good. 
With  this  definition  of  the  words  "  live  forever,"  the 
incident,  as  related,  is  within  the  comprehension  of  a 
child.  Can  any  other  definition  of  "  live  forever  "  make  it 
plain,  even  to  the  highest  intellect  ?  So  far,  it  does  not 
seem  as  if  "life"  can  mean  filial  relation  towards  God, 
on  the  part  of  man,  and  the  consequent  favor  of  God, 
with  all  the  blessedness  resulting  therefrom.  Therefore 
"  death  "  cannot  mean  sinful  proclivities,  alienation  from 
God  and  his  consequent  disfavor,  with  all  the  infelicity 
growing  out  of  this  relation,  for  whatever  meaning  is 
given  to  one  of  the  words,  "  life  "  and  "  death,  "  its  con- 
trary must  be  found  in  the  other;  the  constant  usage  of 
Scripture  makes  this  necessary. 

In  Gen.  2:7,  we  read,  "and  man  became  a  liv- 
ing soul."  This  term  living  soul,  in  chapter  1:20,  21,  24, 
is  applied  to  the  water  and  land  animals  equally  with 
Adam  in  this  *verse.  How  did  man  become  a 
living  soul?  It  is  said  in  the  immediate  context, 
"And  the  Lord  God  formed  man  out  of  the  dust 
of  the  ground,"  but  this  form  was  inert,  wanting 
in  that  which  even  the  meanest  reptile  then  crawling 
upon  the  earth  possessed,  until,  as  the  record  goes  on  to 
say,  his  Creator  "  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of 
life,"  in  consequence  of  which  the  heretofore  motionless 
form  was  vitalized  in  common  with  the  other  creatures. 
Is  there  any  intimation  here,  even  the  most  remote,  that 
the  life  conferred  by  the  Creator  consisted  in  the  enjoy- 
ment by  Adam  of  the  favor  of  God,  or  in  the  happiness 

*  Murphy  on  Gen.,  page  84. 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  15 

bestowed  upon  him,  or  in  the  innocence  possessed  by  the 
new  creature,  or  in  his  moral  rectitude  and  harmony 
with  the  will  of  God  ?  If  there  is,  I  have  not  found 
any  one  to  point  it  out  to  me.  If  Murphy  is  authority 
for  the  rendering  of  the  original,  in  the  mere  matter  of 
life,  man  and  the  animals  possessed  it  in  common.  This 
all  seems  to  accord  with  the  plain  declaration  of  the 
Bible  in  other  places.  Speaking  of  the  lower  order  of 
animal  life  in  Lev.  I  i:io,  God  says,  "of  all  that  move  in 
the  waters,  and  of  any  living  thing  which  is  in  the 
waters,"  also  in  Eze.  47:9,  "  every  thing  that  liveth,  which 
moveth."  "Living  thing"  in  the  first  quotation,  and 
"  thing  that  liveth,"  in  the  second,  are  in  the  original 
the  same  words  that  in  Gen.  2:7  are  translated  "living 
soul."  Thesi  are  in  addition  to  Gen.  1:20,  21,  24,  where 
the  same  Hebrew  words  are  used  in  reference  to  the 
brutes.  One  more  quotation  in  this  connection  will  suf- 
fice. Gen.  7:22  reads,  "all  in  whose  nostrils  was  the 
breath  of  life,  of  all  that  was  in  the  dry  land,  died."  The 
Hebrew  here  for  "  nostril  .  .  .  breath  of  life  "  is  the  same 
that  in  Gen.  2:7  is  used  in  narrating  the  process  of  giv- 
ing life  to  the  first  man.  From  the  testimony  of  the 
Bible  it  appears  that  so  far  as  life  itself  is  concerned,  it 
was  bestowed  by  the  Creator  upon  the  lower  order  of  his 
creatures,  as  well  as  upon  man  who  stood  at  the  head 
of  all  his  works  on  earth;  and  as  concerns  the  possession 
of  life,  there  is  no  difference  between  the  man  and  the 
brute,  and  it  is  to  be  carefully  noted  that  in  the  passages 
before  quoted,  the  words  used  in  the  original  for  "  liv- 
ing" and  "  life"  are  the  same  in  all  the  different  texts, 
so  that  whatever  life  means  in  one  place  it  must  mean 
the  others. 


16  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

While  insisting  that  the  same  meaning  attaches  to 
the  word  "  life  "  both  for  man  and  brute  in  the  before 
quoted  verses,  I  by  no  means  claim  that,  morally  or 
intellectually,  the  lives  of  all  animate  creatures  move  on 
the  same  plane;  for  in  this  respect  they  are  radically 
different  What  I  do  assert,  and  shall  endeavor  to 
prove  from  the  word  of  God,  is  that  the  intellect  and 
moral  sense  in  man,  and  the  instinct  in  the  brute,  is  not 
the  respective  life  of  each,  but  merely  properties  per- 
taining to  life.  Discarding  all  prejudice,  and  standing 
by  the  entire  word  of  God,  aside  from  human  creeds, 
and  simply  comparing  scripture  with  scripture,  I  think 
it  capable  of  absolute  demonstration,  that  neither  man's 
relations  to  God  as  an  accountable  being,  his  original 
innocence  and  attendant  felicity,  nor  the  renewal  of  the 
filial  relation  broken  by  sin,  and  the  resultant  happiness, 
4Btt  any,  or  all  of  them  combined,  constitute  his  life,  or 
any  part  of  his  life,  as  the  word  is  used  in  the  quota- 
tions made,  but  are  merely  conditions  under  which  his 
life  is  developed  and  maintained. 


CHAPTER    II. 


jROM  the  Bible  alone,  comparing  the  various  pas- 
sages in  which  the  word  is  used  and  adopting  a 
definition  that  attaches  no  ambiguity  to  any  of 
them,  nor  needs  any  labored  explanation  to 
make  the  meaning  plain  to  an  ordinary  mind,  I 
understand  the  term  "life,"  as  applied  to  man  in 
the  Bible,  to  mean  that  principle  conferred  by  the  Crea- 
tor, through  the  operation  of  which  both  his  material  and 
immaterial  parts  are  maintained  in  being,  enabled  to  sub- 
serve the  end  of  their  creation,  and  preserved  from  disor- 
ganization and  consumption.  The  word  is  also  used,  at 
times,  to  designate  the  outward,  visible  activities  of  the 
organism  it  pervades  and  preserves;  but  this  is  a  second- 
ary meaning.  It  may  be  objected  that  the  immaterial 
part  of  man,  i.  e.,  the  soul,  is  not  subject  to  disorganiza- 
tion; but  is  not  this  a  mere  assumption,  and  a  wrong  one  ? 
Is  not  life  as  necessary  to  the  soul,  to  guard  it  against 
disorganization  and  extinction,  as  it  is  to  the  body? 
The  immaterial  part  of  man,  called  the  soul,  wills, 
elects,  loves, fears,  and  suffers,  wholly  independently  of  the 
body;  and  the  discharge  of  these  functions,  so  diverse  in 
their  character,  necessitates  an  organism  of  varied  capa- 
bilities; for,  to  use  the  argument  of  Paul  (i  Cor.  12:17), 
If  the  whole  soul  were  a  will,  where  were  the  love  ?  If 

(17) 


i8  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

the  whole  were  perception,  where  were  the  choosing? 
These  functions  necessitate  the  organism  by  which  they 
are  discharged,  or  an  harmonious  arrangement  in  one 
being,  of  several  powers  and  faculties  with  the  condi- 
tions necessary  for  their  exercise;  and  this,  it  seems  to 
me,  may  properly  be  called  an  organism.  The  principle 
which  preserves  this  organism  intact,  is  its  life;  and  that 
which  holds  the  material  part  of  man  secure  against 
disorganization  and  decay,  is  its  life.  Going  still  far- 
ther, that  which  sustains  the  oak  in  being,  through  the 
centuries,  or  preserves  the  fragile  plant,  blooming  its 
single  summer  in  the  garden  border,  is  respectively  the 
life  of  each. 

I  therefore  restate  my  definition  of  life  as  being 
that  principle  conferred  by  the  Creator,  through  the  op- 
eration of  which  both  the  material  and  immaterial  parts 
of  man  are  maintained  in  being,  and  preserved  from  dis- 
organization and  consumption,  and  enabled  to  subserve 
the  end  of  their  creation.  If  the  above  is  the  true  def- 
inition of  life,  then  death  cannot  mean  irreclaimably  sin- 
ful habits,  or  alienation  from  God  and  all  good,  nor  eter- 
nal, unmitigated  sorrow  and  sufferings;  but  simply  the 
withdrawal  of  this  vital  principle,  and  the  consequent 
disorganization  and  extinction  of  that  which  its  presence 
had  preserved  in  being,  and  made  active  in  the  direction 
of  the  end  for  which  it  was  created.  And  this  definition 
of  death  applies  equally  to  man,  beast,  or  vegetable,  and 
needs  no  explanation  to  make  clear  the  meaning  of  any 
passage  in  the  Bible  where  the  word  is  used. 

In  John  19  :  19,  we  read  that  when  our  Lord  was 
crucified,  Pilate  had  written  and  put  upon  his  cross, 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  19 

"  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the  King  of  the  Jews;  "  "  and  it  was 
written  in  Hebrew,  and  Greek,  and  Latin."  It  would 
have  been  a  comparatively  easy  matter  for  a  person 
knowing  either  one  of  these  languages  to  ascertain 
what  the  corresponding  word  in  either  of  the  other 
inscriptions  meant,  though  entirely  ignorant  of  the  lan- 
guage in  other  respects.  So  the  Rosetta  stone,  by  its 
one  sentence  in  a  known  language,  gave  the  key  with 
which  to  unlock  the  secrets  of  the  otherwise  unintel- 
ligible characters  upon  its  face.  In  like  manner,  some 
texts  of  Scripture  seem  so  arranged  that  we  may  ob- 
tain a  clear  understanding  as  to  what  was  the  mind 
of  the  Spirit  regarding  the  meaning  of  these  words, 
"  life  "  and  "  death."  One  of  these  passages  is  found  in 
Eze.  33  :  1 1,  and  reads,  "  Say  unto  them,  As  /  live,  saith 
the  Lord  God,  I  have  no  pleasure  in  the  death  of  the 
wicked  ;  but  that  the  wicked  turn  from  his  way  and 
live;  turn  ye,  turn  ye  from  your  evil  ways;  for  why 
will  ye  die,  O  house  of  Israel?"  That  which  separates 
Jehovah  from  all  else  in  the  universe  and  which  he 
claims  as  the  distinctive  mark  of  his  Deity,  is  his  being. 
Others  there  may  be  who  are  holy  even  as  he,  who  are 
so  strong  in  virtue  as  to  defy  the  fiercest  assaults  of  evil, 
whose  power  is  equal  to  creating  worlds,  and  whose  wis- 
dom may  suffice  to  govern  them;  but  if  there  are  such 
exalted  intelligences  as  these,  all  their  powers,  yes,  their 
very  being  itself,  is  derived  from  him  who  claims  for  him- 
self alone,  inherent  uncreated  existence. 

We  are  told  in  the  third  chapter  of  Exodus,  when 
God  appeared  to  Moses  at  Horeb,  that  Moses  hesitated 
about  going  to  his  countrymen  in  Egypt,  and  when  he 


20  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 


asked  the  name  of  the  God  who  sent  him,  God  replied, 
':Say  unto  the  children  of  Israel,  I  AM  hath  sent  me." 
This  distinctive  quality  of  uncreated,  self-sustained  be- 
ing, God  repeatedly  alludes  to,  when  he  wishes  to  im- 
press upon  men,  with  the  utmost  emphasis,  some  impor- 
tant truth.  "As  I  live  saith  the  Lord,"  is  an  expression 
many  times  used  in  the  Bible,  and  uAs  the  Lord  liveth," 
became  in  the  mouths  of  prophets  and  holy  men  the 
most  solemn  form  of  affirmation. 

But  to  return  to  the  verse  quoted  from  Ezekiel, 
What  is  the  evident  meaning  of  the  words  "live"  and 
"die?" 

Language,  if  it  is  to  be  intelligible,  must  be  constant 
in  its  meaning,  /.  *.,  the  same  word  in  the  same  or  simi- 
lar connections  must  be  supposed  to  convey  the  same 
idea.  Of  course  there  are  figures  of  speech  wherein 
words  are  taken  out  of  the  line  of  their  ordinary  mean- 
ing; but  even  in  such  cases,  the  relation  of  the  language 
to  the  object  referred  to  is  such  that  there  can  be  no 
need  for  mistake.  For  instance,  when  we  read  of  the 
"wings  of  the  wind,"  the  "throne  of  God,"  the  "sword 
of  the  Spirit,"  the  "  music  of  the  spheres,"  the  dullest  in- 
tellect recognizes  the  figure  and  apprehends  the  mean- 
ing. But  when  treating  of  ordinary  things,  and  espe- 
cially when  putting  on  record  important  historical  facts 
for  the  instruction  of  mankind,  or  edicts  for  the  govern- 
ment of  nations,  such  a  use  of  language  is  not  permissi- 
ble, but  is  carefully  guarded  against.  If  an  earthly  gov- 
ernment should  affix  a  penalty  to  the  crime  of  treason, 
using  such  ambiguous  language  that  one  judge  should 
declare  it  meant  life-long  imprisonment,  another  banish- 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  21 

ment  to  some  penal  colony  with  severe  labor,  and  a  third 
interpret  it  as  awarding  death,  the  whole  world  would 
say  that  such  a  government  was  unfit  to  continue  a  day. 

I  cannot  believe  that  he  who  created  man  and  placed 
him  under  obligation  of  obedience  to  his  laws,  has  been 
less  guarded  or  explicit  than  are  human  rulers  in  the 
choice  of  the  language  used  for  announcing  his  decrees 
and  affixing  his  penalties  to  their  transgression.  When 
he  says,  "  In  the  day  thou  eatest  thereof  thou  shalt  surely 
die," and  "The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die,"  he  employs 
no  figure  of  speech  to  conceal  the  fearful  import  of  the 
words.  When  he  says,  "As  I  live  I  have  no  pleasure  in 
the  death  of  him  that  dieth"  (Eze.  18  ;  32),  his  life  is 
contrasted  with  the  death  of  the  wicked;  and  when  in 
the  same  verse  he  calls  upon  the  wicked  to  turn  from 
his  wickedness  "and  live,"  it  is  that  he  shall  come  into 
possession  of  that  which  the  speaker  in  the  same  verse 
claims  to  possess  exclusively  as  an  inherent  principle, 
viz.,  "life."  When  God  says,  "As  I  live,"  he  has  no  ref- 
erence to  his  holiness,  or  his  wisdom,  or  his  power,  or 
beatitude.  He  most  clearly  does  refer  to  the  distinctive 
quality  which  he  claims  for  himself  alone  as  the  uncre- 
ated life.  Therefore  when  in  the  same  verse  and  con- 
nection he  calls  upon  the  wicked  to  turn  "and  live,"  he 
does  not  call  him'  primarily  to  the  practice  of  holiness, 
for  this  is  included  in  the  turning,  the  result  of  which  is 
the  obtaining  life;  and  for  the  forgiven  sinner  to  live 
must  be  the  same  thing  essentially  as  for  the  forgiving 
Creator  to  live;  although  life  inheres  in  the  one  and  is 
communicated  to  the  other. 

At  the  risk   of  being   tedious,  let    me   ask    atten- 


22  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

tion  to  this  eighteenth  chapter  of  Ezekiel  from  a  different 
point  of  observation,  which,  though  in  a  measure  em- 
bracing the  previous  view,  extends  somewhat  in  another 
direction.  In  verse  4,  God  says,  "  The  soul  that  sinneth, 
it  shall  die,"  and  in  verse  27  where  "  the  wicked  man 
turneth  away  from  his  wickedness  ....  and  do- 
eth  that  which  is  lawful  and  right,  he  shall  save  his  soul 
alive."  The  first  point  to  be  made  here  is  that  the  life 
and  death  spoken  of  in  this  chapter  do  not  apply  to  the 
material  part  of  man,  or  this  present  stage  of  being; 
for  as  regards  these, all  men,  the  righteous  and  the  wicked, 
fare  alike;  therefore  these  terms  must  refer  to  con- 
tinued, eternal  life,  and  radical,  permanent  death.  The 
one  must  also  be  understood  as  contrary  to  the  other, 
for  verse  13  places  them  in  this  relation.  It  says,  "He 
shall  not  live;  .  .  .  he  shall  surely  die, "and  the  contrast  is 
repeated  in  verse  2 1  in  the  same  words,  with  the  order 
reversed,  "  He  shall  surely  live,  he  shall  not  die."  Then 
again  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  Hebrew  word  trans- 
lated soul  is  the  same  used  in  Gen.  2:7,"  and  man  be- 
came a  living  soul"  I  am  aware  that  this  word  "  soul  " 
is  often  used  to  designate  a  personality,  as,  for  instance, 
the  members  of  Abram's  family  when  he  left  Haran  are 
spoken  of  as  "all  the  souls  he  had  gotten  in  Haran.'* 
Gen.  12:2.  Neither  is  this  the  only  other  sense  in  which 
it  is  used;  but  whether  employed  to  signify  the  affec- 
tions, or  the  life,  or  a  person,  I  do  not  recollect  any  place 
where  the  connection  does  not  serve  to  make  its  meaning 
plain.  The  point,  however,  which  I  wish  to  make  from 
this  eighteenth  chapter  of  Ezekiel,  is  not  affected  either 
way  by  this  varied  use  of  the  word.  It  is  simply  this, 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  23 

that  the  soul  which  God  gave  to  Adam  at  his  creation  is 
subject  to  death,  for  its  Creator  asserts  that  in  certain 
events  it  shall  die,  and  no  longer  live.  If  this  is  so,  the 
soul  of  man  cannot  be  immortal,  for  the  word  "  immortal '' 
means  deathless,  imperishable,  not  subject  to  death. 

At  this  point  our  religious  teachers  meet  us  with 
the  explanation,  "  But  this  death  that  is  spoken  of  here  is 
spiritual  death  which  the  soul  shall  experience."  And 
when  they  are  asked  what  spiritual  death  is,  they  reply 
that  it  is  estrangement  from  God,  the  loss  of  spiritual 
perceptions,  the  spiritual  eyes  are  blind  to  spiritual  light, 
the  ears  deaf  to  spiritual  truth,  and  the  whole  spiritual 
nature  is  as  insensible  to  spiritual  things  as  the  senses 
of  a  man  physically  dead  are  to  natural  objects.  I  have 
asked  several  ministers  the  meaning  of  spiritual  death 
and  think  the  above  is  the  fairest  statement  that  can  be 
made  of  the  answers  they  give.  Now  this  is  the  very 
condition  the  sinful  soul  is  already  in ;  how  then  does 
God  say,  "  If  you  sin  you  shall  come  into  this  condition?'' 
There  is  no  pertinence  to  the  threat.  It  is  as  if  God  had 
said,  "  The  soul  that  is  dead  shall  die."  This  single  con- 
sideration should  seemingly  be  enough  to  set  aside  the 
explanation  as  insufficient  and  unsatisfactory. 

But  again,  in  verse  23, God  says,"  Have  I  any  pleasure 
at  all  that  the  wicked  should  die?  "  Now  "the  wicked"  are 
exactly  in  that  condition  described  as  spiritual  death,  so 
the  verse  really  should  read,  "  Have  I  any  pleasure  at  all 
that  the  spiritually  dead  should  die?"  If  this  is  the 
proper  interpretation,  and  to  be  wicked  is  to  be  spiritu- 
ally dead,  then  there  is  an  ulterior  death  for  them  to  un- 
dergo which  is  all  that  I  am  contending  for.  But  where 


24  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

do  our  teachers  find  their  warrant  for  the  use  of  this  term, 
"spiritual  death"?  I  do  not  find  it  anywhere  in  the  Bi- 
ble, and  by  all  generally  accepted  usage,  life  must  pre- 
cede death,  and  so  far  as  the  Bible  teaches  us  anything 
regarding  this  matter,  it  is  that  by  nature  man  has  no 
life  of  this  kind  to  lose.  Our  Lord,  in  John  3  :  6,  7,  says 
"That  which  is  born  of  the  flesh,  is  flesh;  and  that 
which  is  born  of  the  Spirit,  is  spirit;  marvel  not  that 
I  said  unto  thee,  Ye  must  be  born  again."  Paul  teaches 
the  same  truth  in  i  Cor.  15:45,46.  "  The  first  man 
Adam  was  made  a  living  soul,  the  last  Adam  was  made 
a  life-giving  Spirit;  howbeit,  that  is  not  first  which  is  spir- 
itual, but  that  which  is  natural;  and  afterward  that  which 
is  spiritual,"  clearly  teaching  that  by  nature  as  derived 
from  Adam  man  possesses  a  "living  soul,"  but  attains  to 
no  spiritual  nature  until,  through  the  offices  of  Jesus 
Christ  on  his  behalf,  he  is  begotten  from  above,  and 
brought  under  the  operation  of  his  life-giving  Spirit- 
This  may  come  in  sharp  conflict  with  long-cherished  be- 
liefs and  deep-rooted  prejudices,  but  if  language  can 
.convey  ideas,  this  is  what  the  language  of  the  Bible  says. 
This  part  of  the  argument  is  purposely  left  incom- 
plete as  it  will  naturally  reappear  in  a  later  chapter. 


CHAPTER    III. 


S  the  living  Father  hath  sent  me,  and  I  live  because 
of  the  Father,  so  he  that  eateth  me,  even  he  also, 
shall  live  because  of  me."  John  6:57.  This  is  an 
utterance  by  our  divine  Master,  making  still 
clearer  than  does  Eze.  33  :ii  the  meaning  to  be  given 
to  this  word  "  life."  That  passage  which  we  considered 
in  the  last  chapter,  though  coming  as  from  God  himself, 
was  enunciated  through  a  human  mouth-piece,  and  may, 
perhaps  correctly,  be  thought  to  have  its  true  meaning 
somewhat  obscured  through  the  imperfection  of  the 
medium;  but  in  the  passage  before  us  there  is  no  such 
possibility.  He  who  speaks  is  the  Eternal  Word,  with- 
out whom  nothing  was  made  that  was  made.  He  also 
was  the  life,  and  knew,  as  possibly  none  but  God  does 
know,  what,  in  its  essence,  is  that  mysterious  principle 
which  we  call  life.  At  this  place  he  brings  the  life  of 
the  Father,  his  own  life,  and  the  life  of  believers  in  him, 
into  such  a  relation  to  each  other  that  the  meaning  of 
any  one  of  the  three  being  given,  that  of  the  others  must 
readily  be  found.  "  The  living  Father."  Repeatedly, 
in  the  gospels  and  epistles,  the  qualification  of  "  living  " 
is  prefixed  in  speaking  of  God;  and  though  in  the  New 
Testament  he  is  spoken  of  as  the  "  God  of  peace,"  "  The 
only  wise  God,"  (i  The  God  of  hope,  "  The  most  high 

(25) 


26  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

God"  (but  this  is  evidently  a  quotation  from  Gen.  14:18), 
"  The  God  of  all  Grace,"  and  in  Revelation  four  times, 
as  "God  Almighty,"  still  the  prefix  "living"  is  used 
oftener  than  all  the  others  together,  showing  that  to  those 
of  the  new  dispensation  who  were  the  most  illumined  by 
the  Holy  Spirit,  life,  more  than  any  or  every  other 
quality,  was,  to  them,  that  which  most  widely  separated 
God  from  all  his  creatures.  In  order  to  apprehend  the 
full  meaning  of  this  word  "  living,"  as  used  by  our  Lord 
in  connection  with  the  Father,  let  us  look  at  some  other 
passages  where  it  is  used,  and  consider  its  connections. 
In  Matt.  22:32,  Jesus,  in  arguing  with  the  Sadducees 
regarding  the  resurrection,  says,  "  God  is  not  the  God  of 
the  dead,  but  of  the  living,"  and  the  Greek  word  trans- 
lated living  there,  is  the  same  used  in  John  6:57.  Liv- 
ing men  are,  by  our  Lord,  contrasted  with  dead  men; 
there  is  not  the  remotest  allusion  or  reference  to  any 
moral  condition,  or  to  any  state  of  happiness  or  suffering, 
and  I  do  not  see  where  any  man  or  any  class  of  men 
obtain  the  authority  to  say  that,  in  using  the  word,  he 
meant  one  thing  by  it  in  one  place  and  something  rad- 
ically different  in  the  other  places.  If,  then,  in  Matt. 
22:32,  the  word  is  used -in  its  ordinary  sense,  as  desig- 
nating a  living  being  as  contrasted  with  one  deprived  of 
life,  why  should  we  not  attach  a  similar  meaning  to  it  in 
John  6:57?  It  does  not  seem  that  we  can  avoid  doing 
so,  if  we  submit  the  verse  to  the  test  applied  to  Eze. 
33:11  in  the  last  chapter.  But  this  is  not  the  only  clue 
to  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  living."  In  Luke  24:5,  the 
angel  says  to  the  women  at  the  sepulcher,  "  Why  seek 
ye  the  living  among  the  dead,"  and  in  Revelation  1:18, 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  27 

our  risen  Lord  says  of  himself,  "  I  am  he  that  liveth,  and 
was  dead,  and  behold,  I  am  alive  forevermore;  and  have 
the  keys  of  hades  and  of  death."  Life  and  death  as  here 
used  cannot  relate  to  the  moral  or  spiritual  condition  of 
the  being  referred  to,  or  to  his  happiness  or  misery.  The 
contrast  is  not  between  such  conditions,  but  between  the 
presence  of  that  principle  of  life  which  preserves  from 
disorganization  whatever  it  pervades,  and  its  absence, 
death. 

If  the  death,  which,  in  the  last  text,  Jesus  says 
he  experienced,  had  no  relation  to  moral  or  spiritual 
conditions,  why  should  the  death  to  which  he  holds  the 
keys,  and  which  must  mean  eternal  death,  be  defined  as 
a  moral  or  spiritual  condition?  And  so,  also,  of  the  life 
in  the  last  quotation.  If,  in  the  person  of  Jesus  himself, 
this  does  not  relate  to  any  moral  or  spiritual  condition, 
but  to  vital  being,  where  is  the  authority  for  saying  and 
insisting  that  the  life  which  he  promises  all  who 
will  accept  it  at  his  hands,  is  not  a  like  vital  existence^ 
but  only  the  conditions  under  which  that  existence  shall 
be  passed,  and  by  which  it  shall  be  influenced  ?  If  zoe 
awnios,  used  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  John's  gospel,  in 
four  places,  means  in  the  Greek  unending  holiness,  and 
supreme  felicity,  why  not  translate  it  so  instead  of  giv- 
ing it  an  arbitrary  equivalent  in  English,  and  then,  de- 
fining the  equivalent  to  mean  something  which,  in  the 
ordinary  acceptance  of  the  language,  it  does  not  mean  ? 

This  course  would  makeplain,tothemind  of  the  ordi- 
nary reader,  many  points  that  under  the  present  plan 
are  very  much  confused.  In  this  verse  in  John  6:57  the 
Greek  word  translated  life  is  used  three  times,  once  as 


28  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

pertaining  to  the  Father,  once  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
and  once  to  the  believers  on  the  Lord;  and  it  is  impossi- 
ble that  it  can  have  on^  meaning1  in  relation  to  one  of 
the  persons  spoken  of,  and  something  radically  different 
in  relation  to  the  others.  Our  Lord  in  the  entire  chap- 
ter is  evidently  speaking  of  life,  and  not  of  the  condi- 
tions attaching  to  it.  The  Jews  demanded  his  creden- 
tials as  a  prophet  or  the  Messiah,  saying  that  when 
Moses  required  obedience  he  gave  proof  that  he  was 
commissioned  by  God  to  exact  it,  by  feeding  and  sus- 
taining the  lives  of  the  people  on  the  manna  supplied  in 
a  miraculous  way.  Jesus  replied  that  in  attestation  of 
his  divine  authority  he  would,  upon  all  that  believed 
on  him,  confer  eternal  life.  "  Your  fathers  did  eat  manna 
in  the  wilderness  and  they  died.  This  is  the  bread 
which  cometh  down  out  of  heaven,  that  a  man  may  eat 
thereof  and  not  die."  The  death  experienced  by  their 
fathers,  had  no  reference  to  the  circumstances  connected 
with  it.  Some  died  in  the  course  of  nature,  from  old 
age,  some  were  consumed  by  fire  out  of  heaven,  some 
were  swallowed  up  by  the  opening  of  the  earth,  and 
went  down  alive  into  the  pit,  some  died  rebels  in  heart 
and  act  toward  God,  and  some  in  faith  and  love; 
none  of  these  conditions  under  which  they  gave  up 
their  physical  life  are  so  much  as  alluded  to;  the  one 
indisputable  fact  was  that  "they  died." 

The  time  at  length  came  to  each  one  when  the 
manna  supplied  by  Moses  had  no  sustaining  power, 
and  as  regards  this  stage  of  existence  they  ceased  to 
be.  Now,  in  contrast  to  this,  Jesus  speaks  of  himself 
as  possessed  of  power  to  sustain  eternally  the  lives  of 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 


all  who  believe  in  him,  and  the  death  which  he  thus 
averts  for  believers  is  so  compared  with  the  death 
that  Moses  was  powerless  to  prevent  that  both 
must  be  taken  to  mean  essentially  the  same,  i.  e., 
the  cessation  of  being.  In  one  case  it  is  the  ter- 
mination of  this  stage  of  our  being;  in  the  other  it  is  the 
termination  of  the  future  stage  of  being.  If  we  be«- 
gin  at  "the  living  Father,"  accepting  the  qualifying  pre- 
fix as  referring  to  essential,  uncreated  life,  inhering  in 
God,  and  trace  this  down  through  the  God-man  to  the 
believer,  giving  to  him  an  unending  life,  independent  of 
ths  conditions  under  which  it  is  maintained,  we  have  a 
clear,  connected,  harmonious  whole. 

The  Father,  sole  possessor  of  uncreated,  unending 
being,  the  Son,  the  manifestation  of  the  invisible  God 
through  his  union  with  the  Father,  partaking  in  aH  its 
fullness  of  the  same,  and  the  believer,  through  the  be- 
getting from  above,  brought  into  union  with  the  Son, 
and  thus  his  eternal  life  secured.  In  John  14:19, 
Jesus  says  to  his  disciples,  "  Because  I  live,  ye  shall 
live  also,"  and  this  is  additional  evidence  that  the  eter- 
nal life,  which  our  Lord  so  emphatically  and  repeatedly 
claims,  can  be  given  to  men  only  by  himself,*  is  to  be 
understood  of  vital  existence;  otherwise  there  would 
be  but  little  force  in  the  statement,  and  no  connection 
between  the  premise  and  the  conclusion. 

The  argument  appears  to  be  this  :  I  am  about  to 
die.  For  a  little  while  I  shall  be  taken  away  from  you 
and  laid  in  the  grave.  Your  light  will  go  out  in  dark- 
ness, your  hope  expire  in  despair.  But  I  will  not  finally 

*Jno.  5:21,  25,  26;  6:47;   10:28. 


30  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

leave  you  thus.  I  will  come  to  you  again.  Although 
the  world  shall  see  me  no  more,  ye  shall  see  me,  and 
my  appearing  alive  again  after  my  crucifixion  shall 
demonstrate  to  you  my  power  over  death,  and  assure 
you  of  obtaining  the  eternal  life  I  have  promised,  and 
the  ground  for  your  assurance  shall  be  that  you  see 
me  possessed  of  a  life  which  death  could  not  destroy, 
and  because  I  have  it,  you  may  be  sure  that  you  shall 
possess  it  also.  Now  if  life  for  their  Lord  means  the 
vital  essence  by  which  he  is,  and  continues  to  be,  and 
through  the  operation  of  which  he  rose  from  the  grave, 
his  disciples  might  legitimately  conclude  that  he  could 
confer  the  same  upon  them,  but  it  would  be  no  warrant 
for  their  assuming  that  he  would  bestow  upon  them 
something  else.  He  will,  of  his  abounding  grace,  be- 
stow upon  his  redeemed  ones  unnumbered  and  inestima- 
ble blessings  according  to  his  other  promises,  but  their 
expectation  regarding  these  is  not  based  upon  this  "  be- 
cause I  have  life,"  nor  dependent  upon  it.  It  also  fol- 
lows that  unless  the  life  which  Jesus  bestows  is  of  the 
same  nature  with  that  he  possesses,  there  is  no  logical 
sequence  from  the  "  because  I  have  life,"  to  the  "  ye 
shall  also  have  life." 

We  have  wandered  away  from  John  6:57,  with 
which  we  began  the  chapter,  though  the  digression  has 
not  taken  us  away  from  the  subject  matter  of  the  verse. 
The  specific  promise  made  by  the  Lord  in  the  verse  is 
just  this  :  "As  I  live  because  of  the  Father,  so  he  that 
eateth  me,  even  he  shall  live  because  of  me."  The  life 
of  the  Father,  the  life  of  the  Son,  and  the  life  of  the  be- 
liever must,  if  language  is  to  be  understood,  all  be  the 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  31 

same  in  character,  though  different  in  intensity.  If  life 
for  the  believer  means  the  development  in  him  of  the 
Christian  graces,  and  the  subjection  of  all  sinful  pas- 
sions and  proclivities,  and  the  final  attainment  of  com- 
plete holiness  and  perfect  beatitude  in  the  heavenly 
paradise,  then  life  for  the  Father  and  the  Son  must 
mean  the  same;  but  the  whole  context,  as  well  in  the 
original  as  in  the  translation,  forbids  any  such  defini- 
tion of  the  word,  as  applied  to  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
consequently  it  cannot  be  so  defined  as  applied  to  be- 
lievers. 

A  little  consideration  of  the  twenty-first  verse  of 
the  fifth  chapter  of  this  same  Gospel  may  confirm 
this  position.  We  there  read,  "  For  as  the  Father 
raiseth  up  the  dead  and  giveth  them  life,  even  so  the 
Son  giveth  life  to  whosoever  he  will;"  and  in  the 
twenty-sixth  verse,  "  For  as  the  Father  hath  life  in  him- 
self, so  hath  he  given  to  the  Son  to  have  life  in  himself.'' 
The  Father  being  himself  the  essence  and  source  of  all 
life,  th*  Son,  by  his  oneness  with  the  Father,  is  equally 
so,  and  this  quality  of  inherent  life  pertaining  to  the 
Deity  he  can  reproduce  in  other  beings  at  his  will. 
But,  as  in  all  the  laws  which  God  has  made,  the  opera- 
tions of  which  come  under  our  observation,  we  see  like 
uniformly  producing  like,  and  the  offspring,  in  its  nature, 
closely  resembling  the  progenitor,  so  we  must  believe, 
in  the  absence  of  any  authority  to  the  contrary,  that 
the  life  which  flows  out  from  the  "  Living  God  "  is,  in 
its  nature,  clearly  analagous  to  his  own  life,  though  he 
may  permit,  or  cause  it  to  be  maintained,  under  very 
varied  conditions  in  different  orders  of  beings  or  even  in 


32  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

individuals  of  the  same  class.  In  the  fifth  and  sixth 
chapters  of  John,  where  so  much  is  said  of  eternal  life  as 
derived  from  Jesus  Christ,  there  is  no  allusion,  in  the  remot- 
est degree,  to  happiness  or  misery,  to  harmony  with  God, 
or  rebellion  against  him,  to  sin  or  holiness,  to  punishment 
or  reward,  in  connection  with  the  subject,  except  the 
gift  of  life  by  the  Son  to  believers,  and  by  implication 
the  loss  of  it  to  all  who  fail  to  obtain  it  from  his-hand;  for 
in  the  fifty-third  verse  of  the  sixth  chapter  heemphatically 
asserts  that,  aside  from  his  work,  there  is  no  life  in  man; 
all  the  life  he  has  is  from  without,  and  may  at  any  mo- 
ment be  withdrawn. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


;N  the  preceding  pages,  my  case,  though  by  no 
means  complete,  has  been  so  far  presented  that  it  is 
perhaps  advisable  to  devote  this  chapter  to  a  consid- 
eration of  some  of  the  objections  which  are  urged  by 
Christians  against  the  definition  herein  given  to  "  life  " 
and  "  death."  The  only  objections  that  will  be  consid- 
ered will  be  those  based  upon  the  Bible,  for  it  is  from 
this  book  alone  that  I  hope  for  the  confirmation  of  my 
views  if  true,  or  will  accept  their  refutation  if  erroneous. 
The  first  objection  most  likely  to  be  raised  is  that  this 
life-giving:  which  was  treated  of  in  the  last  chapter,  is 
not  literally  a  bestowal  of  life,  but  a  bringing  of  the  soul 
out  from  under  the  power  of  sinful  passions  and  affec- 
tions, which,  so  long  as  they  continue  dominant,  keep 
the  man  in  a  state  of  spiritual  death.  On  page  23,  chap- 
ter 2,  we  considered  the  term  "spiritual  death  "in  one 
light,  leaving  the  subject  to  be  resumed  at  this  point  for 
further  investigation.  The  above  objection  is  sustained 
by  quoting  Eph.  2:1,"  who  were  dead  in  trespasses  and 
sins,"  and  Col.  2:13,  "And  you  being  dead  in  your  sins 
.  .  .  .  hath  he  made  alive  together  with  him,"  i.  e. 
Jesus — texts  which,  to  many,  appear  entirely  subversive 
of  my  position,  while  to  me  they  only  serve  to  strengthen 
and  confirm  it.  The  Revised  Version  in  both  places  reads 
3  (33) 


34  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 


"through"  instead  of  "in,"  making  the  meaning  much 
plainer. 

Let  us  first  take  Eph.  2  :  I.  In  the  first  part  of 
this  epistle,  Paul,  referring  possibly  to  Jewish  believ- 
ers, says  they  have  been  predestinated  to  the  adoption 
of  children  and  accepted  in  the  Beloved,  in  whom  they 
have  obtained  an  inheritance  that  they  should  be  to  his 
glory  who  first  trusted  in  Christ.  Thus  to  Eph.  1:12, 
where  the  "us"  of  verse  3  is  dropped  and  the  Ephe- 
sian  converts  are  addressed  :  "  In  whom  ye  also  trusted  " 
and  "  were  sealed  with  that  Holy  Spirit  of  promise  which 
is  the  earnest  of  our  inheritance  until  the  redemption  of 
the  purchased  possession."  In  2  Cor.  5  : 4,  5,  Paul  tells 
us  of  what  the  Spirit  was  the  earnest ;  we  there  read,  "  We 
who  are  in  this  tabernacle  do  groan,  being  burdened, 
not  that  we  would  be  unclothed,  but  clothed  upon,  that 
mortality  might  be  swallowed  up  of  life,"  i.  e.,  that  a  life 
subject  to  death  might  be  merged  in  or  succeeded  by  a  life 
not  subject  to  death,  or  eternal  life.  "  Now  he  who  hath 
wrought  us  for  the  self-same  thing  is  God,  who  also  hath 
given  unto  us  the  earnest  of  tJie  Spirit''  So  we  see  tha 
the  purchased  possession  of  Eph.  2  :  I  is  eternal  life,  as 
the  earnest  or  pledge  of  which,  God  had  given  them  the 
Holy  Spirit;  and  Paul  prays  for  these  Ephesian  believ- 
ers, that  they  might  have  given  them  wisdom,  and  knowl- 
edge, and  understanding,  that  they  might  know  that  the 
same  mighty  power  that  raised  Jesus  from  the  dead,  was 
pledged  thus  effectively  to  work  on  their  behalf;  now 
comes  the  verse  quoted,  "And  you  hath  he  made  alive, 
when  you  were  dead  because  of  your  trespasses  and 
sins."  There  appears  to  be  nothing  here  that  necessi- 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  35 

tates  or  makes  possible  the  introduction  of  any  other 
life  or  death  than  the  same  which  we  have  all  along  been 
considering.  The  death  Paul  is  writing  of  is  the  death  in- 
curred by  transgression,  which  passed  upon  all  men  be- 
cause of  their  trespasses  and  sins;  and  the  life  is  so  as- 
sociated with  the  resurrection  from  the  dead  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  that  there  is  no  possibility  of  separating  it 
from  that  life  which  it  is  his  prerogative  to  bestow  upon 
men.  Thus  far  for  Eph.  2  :  I.  Col.  2  :  13  reads,  "And 
you,  being  dead  because  of  your  sins  ....  hath 
he  made  alive  together  with  him,"  i.  e.,  Christ.  Chap- 
ter 3,  verse  i,  goes  on  to  say,  "If  ye  are  risen  with 
Christ,"  referring  to  Col.  2  :  12,  "seek  those  things  that 
are  above,  where  Christ  sitteth  at  the  right  hand  of  God. 

.  .  .  For  ye  are  dead,  and  your  life  is  hid  with 
Christ  in  God."  Here  again  is  the  same  state  of  things 
repeated.  We  are  dead  because  of  sin ;  made  alive  by 
Jesus.  Christ.  Paul  tells  them  that  they  had  no  life  of 
their  own,  that  they  were  dead,  and  the  only  source  to 
which  they  could  turn  for  life  was  Jesus  Christ,  whose 
life-giving  power  and  the  effects  it  produced  were  brought 
to  our  notice  in  the  last  chapter. 

.  Our  definition  of  life  and  death  seems  as  well  adapted 
to  explain  these  two  verses  as  any  other ;  indeed  they 
need  no  explaining  except,  perhaps,  as  regards  the  tenses 
of  the  verbs.  Paul  says  ye  are  dead.  I  understand  this 
as  meaning  that,  because  of  sin,  man  had  incurred  the 
penalty  affixed  to  sin,  which  is  death — eternal  death, 
with  no  hope  of  a  resurrection.  Rom.  4  :  17  says  that 
God  "  speaketh  of  those  things  which  are  not  as  though 
they  were."  Col.  3  :  3  and  the  verse  above  quoted,  speak 


36  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

of  men  as  already  dead.  Rom.  5:12  says,  "death  passed 
upon  all  men,"  and  in  Rom.  8  :  30  we  read,  "And  whom 
he  called,  them  he  also  justified,  and  whom  he  justified, 
them  he  also  glorified."  The  very  last  of  the  race,  who 
shall  be  made  a  partaker  of  the  grace  of  God  through 
his  Son,  is  spoken  of  by  Paul  as  in  the  sight  of  God  al- 
ready glorified,  and,  as  most  generally  spoken  of  in  the 
Bible,  the  whole  race  of  man  was  as  much  dead  when 
Adam  sinned  in  Eden,  as  the  saints  were  glorified  when, 
in  the  councils  of  eternity,  infinite  love  and  wisdom  de- 
vised redemption  for  them. 

In  these  quotations  from  Ephesians  and  Colossians, 
Paul  merely  says  to  believers,  when,  because  of  your 
sins,  you  had  come  under  the  penalty  of  death,  Jesus 
Christ  interposed,  and  by  his  own  death  redeemed 
you  and  gave  you  eternal  life.  The  words  he  used 
are  "dead"  and  "alive,"  not  some  spiritual,  mental, 
or  moral  condition  resembling  death  or  life,  but  the 
thing  itself.  As  regards  God  and  his  word,  man,  aside 
from  Jesus  Christ,  down  to  the  very  last  one  who  shall 
stand  upon  this  earth,  is  already  dead ;  and  every  one 
who  shall  accept  the  offers  of  his  grace,  glorified.  It  is 
only  as  regards  man's  experiences,  that  the  death  and  the 
glory  are  ingthe  future.  It  is  asserted  by  many  that  the 
being  in  this  sinful  condition,  spoken  of  in  Eph.  2:1  and 
Col.  2:13,  is  death,  and  that  this  is  the  meaning  of  the 
word  as  used  there  and  in  like  passages.  Such  an  un- 
derstanding of  the  term  would  necessitate  paraphrasing 
such  passages  as  follows:  "And  you  who  were  estranged 
from  God  by  wicked  works,  disobedient  to  his  commands, 
oblivious  to  his  perfections  and  the  beauties  of  holiness, 


THE  WORLD  TO  COMK.  37 

despisers  of  his  love,  and  aliens  from  his  favor,  hath  he 
brought  back  to  himself,  made  conformable  to  his  will, 
revealed  to  you  the  excellence  that  is  in  himself,  given 
you  the  spirit  of  a  child,  and  a  place  in  your  father's 
house  and  heart." 

The  former  of  these  conditions  they  say  is  what 
is  meant  by  death,  i.  e.,  spiritual  death ;  and  the  latter 
is  by  them  called  life,  i.  e.,  spiritual  life.  The  erroneous 
character  of  such  an  assumption  cannot  fail  to  be 
perceived  upon  a  little  examination.  Sin  is  nowhere 
in  the  Bible  recognized  as  death;  but  from  Gen.  2:17, 
where  death  is  first  mentioned,  to  Rev.  21:8,  where  the 
word  is  last  used,  sin  is  uniformly  stated  as  the  procuring 
cause  of  death.  Rom.  5:12  says,  "  Wherefore  as  by  one 
man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  death  by  sin,  so 
death  passed  upon  all  men,  for  that  all  have  sinned." 
Death,  in  the  above,  is  plainly  the  penalty  for  sin,  and 
not  the  sinful  state  into  which  mankind  had  fallen,  and 
by  means  of  which  the  penalty  was  incurred.  Rom.  6:21 
says,  "  What  fruit  had  ye  then  in  those  things  whereof 
ye  are  now  ashamed  ?  for  the  end  of  those  things  is 
death."  Any  definite  course  of  action,  and  the  penalty 
attached  to  such  a  line  of  conduct,  or  the  results  arrived 
at  by  it,  are  certainly  separate  and  distinct  things. 
Therefore  the  end  of  this  sinful  course  being  death,  the 
course  pursued  to  reach  this  end  cannot  also  be  death. 
Rom.  6  :  23,  "For  the  wages  of  sin  is  death."  No  one 
will  attempt  to  show  that  the  service  rendered,  and  the 
wages  received  for  the  service  performed,  are  identical. 
And  to  be  dead  because  of  sin  and  trespass  is  as  different 
a  thing  from  a  sinful  condition,  at  enmity  with  God,  as 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 


are  the  wages  paid  for  a  piece  of  work  done  by  a  man 
a  different  thing  from  the  work  by  which  the  wages  were 
earned.  Therefore,  if  the  wages  of  sin  is  death,  the  sin,. 
by  which  the  wages  were  earned,  cannot  be  death  also. 
The  civil  law  says  that  vagrancy  is  a  misdemeanor  to- 
be  punished  by  imprisonment.  But  vagrancy  is  one 
thing  and  the  imprisonment  a  very  different  thing.  Sup- 
posing a  poor  wretch,  convicted  of  vagrancy,  should  be 
told  by  the  Court,  "  You  shall  go  on  wandering  about,. 
picking  up  your  food  where  you  can,  sheltering  your- 
self as  best  you  may,  ragged.,  homeless,  and  forlorn,"  and 
the  judge  should  say  to  him,  "  This  is  what  the  statute 
means  by  imprisonment,"  would  he  not  be  thought  a 
lunatic  ?  Again,  suppose  a  sinner  at  the  bar  of  God, 
found  guilty  of  estrangement  from  him  by  wicked  works,. 
of  disobedience  to  his  commands,  and  rebellion  against 
his  authority,  of  indifference  to  his  perfections  and  of 
despising  the  offers  of  his  grace,  should  be  told  by  the 
Judge  of  living  and  dead  that  he  should  go  on  doing 
just  as  he  had  been  doing,  and  that  this  was  death,  the 
penalty  prescribed  for  transgression,  would  the  anomaly 
be  less  than  in  the  other  case  ?  I  may  seem  needlessly 
prolix  in  regard  to  these  passages  from  Ephesians  and 
Colossians,  but  they  are  so  much  depended  on  to  over- 
throw the  position  taken  regarding  the  meaning  of  death 
in  these  pages  that  it  seemed  important  to  give  them 
full  consideration. 

That  I  have  not  misrepresented  the  position  of  the 
orthodox  churches  on  this  point  will  be  seen  in  the  fol- 
lowing pages.  I  asked  an  esteemed  brother  in  Christ^ 
a  doctor  of  divinity  of  an  evangelical  denomination,  to 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  39 

give  me  his  definition  of  eternal  life  as  I  had  heard  it  in 
the  pulpit  the  preceding  Sunday.  It  is  as- follows,  and 
I  think  it  is  the  accepted  one  in  all  the  churches.  He 
says: — 

''God's  gift  to  man  is  eternal  life;  sin  is  death;  un- 
checked, unremedied,  unpardoned,  it  ultimates  in  the 
destruction  of  the  moral  nature.  The  remedy  for  dark- 
ness is  light,  for  ignorance,  knowledge,  and  for  sin 
(which  is  death),  life.  This  is  God's  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion of  questions,  How  shall  man  be  saved  from  sin? 
*  Give  him  a  fresh  gift  of  life.'  As  the  Chicago  River 
was  cured  of  its  foulness  by  pouring  Lake  Michigan 
through  it,  so  is  man  rescued  from  depravity  and  ruin 
by  a  fresh  impartation  of  life  from  God.  What  is  life? 
It  consists  in  actions,  conduct.  But  back  of  conduct 
lies  the  will,  and  back  of  the  will,  lie  motives,  and  the 
same  motives  affect  different  men  differently.  Back  of 
motives,  lies  a  spirit,  a  disposition,  the  fountain-head 
whence  the  life-stream  flows;  and  the  radical  gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ  says,  Go  to  the  fountain-head;  plant  in  the 
heart  a  new  spirit,  and  the  result  will  be  new  principles, 
new  motives,  a  changed  will,  a  changed  life.  As  you 
transform  a  tree  by  inserting  into  it  a  living  scion  from 
another  tree,  so  does  God  graft  the  heart  with  a  new 
spirit,  a  living  principle  from  his  own  heart,  a  scion  from 
the  tree  of  life;  and  presently  the  man  is  a  new  man, 
the  life  a  new  life.  God  opens  his  heart  and  in  the  per- 
son of  his  Son  pours  out  his  life-blood  that  we  may  live 
thereby.  He  offers  himself  to  us,  saying,  This  is  my 
body,  eat  it;  this  represents  my  blood,  drink  it  all,  in 
expressive  symbol  and  token  of  the  great  central,  vital 


40  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

truth,  that  he  is  the  life  of  our  life,  that  we  live  in  him 
and  upon  him,  thus  becoming  partakers  of  the  divine 
nature." 

The  first  statement,  that  "  God's  gift  "  to  man  is  eter- 
nal life,  passes  unchallenged.  But  the  next,  that  "sin  is 
death,"  is,  I  think,  wholly  untenable.  Jas.  1:15  says> 
"  Sin,  when  it  is  finished,  bringeth  forth  death."  The 
illustration  is  drawn  from  a  natural  birth;  death  is  repre- 
sented as  the  offspring  of  sin,  and  unless  this  child  and 
the  parent  are  one  and  the  same  person,  death,  and  sin 
which  brings  forth  death,  cannot  be  one  and  the  same 
thing.  For  a  fuller  consideration  of  this  point  see  chap- 
ter 4,  page  28.  But  the  definition  goes  on  to  say,  "  un- 
checked, unremedied,  unpardoned,  it  ultimates  in  the 
destruction  of  the  moral  nature."  The  apostle  James, 
as  quoted  above,  says,  "  Sin,  when  it  is  finished \  bringeth 
forth  death,"  but  with  the  above  definition,  sin  never  is 
finished.  The  sinner,  "  unchecked,  unremedied,  unpar- 
doned," goes  on  endlessly  in  sin  and  never  arrives  at  that 
point  where  his  sin  can  be  said  to  be  finished  and  the 
destruction  of  his  moral  nature  effected.  "  How  shall 
man  be  saved  from  sin?"  God  answers,  "  Give  him  a 
fresh  gift  of  life."  "As  the  Chicago  River  was  cured  of 
its  foulness  by  pouring  Lake  Michigan  through  it,  so  is 
man  rescued  from  depravity  and  ruin  by  a  fresh  impar- 
tation  of  life  from  God."  It  appears  to  me  that  here 
cause  is  put  for  result.  The  uniform  teaching  of  Script- 
ure, I  believe,  is  that  men  must  turn  away  from  sin,  and 
towards  God,  before  he  will  bestow  upon  them  eternal 
life;  and  not  that  this  is  bestowed  to  produce  such  a  turn- 
ing. In  Matt.  19  :  16,  the  young  man  who  would  obtain 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  41 

eternal  life,  is  told  by  our  Lord  to  come  into  harmony 
with  the  law  of  God,  and  then  he  might  hope  for  the 
gift;  and. in  the  29th  verse,  eternal  life  is  represented  as 
being  bestowed  only  upon  such  as  have  shown  a  fitness 
for  it,  and  not  as  the  agency  to  produce  that  fitness.  In 
Matt.  25  : 46,  it  is  the  already  righteous  that  enter  into 
life  eternal,  and  the  eternal  life  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  in  the  least  degree  the  producing  cause  of  their 
righteousness.  In  Luke  10  :  27,  the  lawyer  who  asked 
how  he  could  obtain  eternal  life,  was  told  by  our  Lord 
to  love  God  with  all  his  heart,  and  his  neighbor  as  him- 
self; virtually  he  was  to  leave  off  all  sinful  habits  and 
affections,  and  when  this  was  done  he  should  receive  the 
coveted  boon.  But  eternal  life  was  not  given  to  help  him 
gain  this  freedom  from  sin,  for  he  would  be  well  on  the 
road  to  holiness  before  he  could  expect  the  fulfillment 
of  the  promise.  In  John  10  :  27,  28,  Jesus  says,  "My 
sheep  hear  my  voice,  ....  and  I  give  unto  them 
eternal  life."  He  gives  it  to  those  already  his  followers, 
not  that  they  may  become  so.  John  12  :  25,  "  He  that 
hateth  his  life  in  this  world  shall  keep  it  unto  life  eter- 
nal." It  is  right  relations  towards  God  that  result  in 
eternal  life,  and  not  these  that  produce  these  relations. 
Rom.  2:7,"  To  them  who  by  patient  continuance  in  well 
doing  seek  for  glory,  and  honor,  and  immortality,  eternal 
life."  These  recipients  of  the  gift  have  been  a  long  time 
patiently  and  continuously  striving  against  sin}  but  it 
does  not  appear  as  if  they  had  been  assisted  in  this  strife 
by  eternal  life,  but  rather  that  this  is  the  outcome  of  the 
conflict.  Rom.  6:22:  "But  now  being  made  free 
from  sin,  and  become  servants  to  God,  ye  have 


42  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

your  fruit  unto  holiness,  and  the  end  everlasting  life." 
The  apostle  certainly  teaches,  as  do  all  of  these  passages 
quoted  (and  the  Bible  is  full  of  similar  ones);  that  eter- 
nal life  is  the  end  or  outcome  of  holiness,  and  not  the 
means  of  its  attainment.  It  seems  to  be  needless  to  go 
farther  in  this  direction. 

My  brother  asks,  "What  is  life?"  and  answers,  "  It 
consists  in  actions,  conduct."  But  is  this  so?  Are  ac- 
tions, conduct — life?  The  most  that  can  be  rightly 
claimed  for  these,  to  my  mind,  is  that  they  evince  the 
possession  of  life  by  the  being  in  whom  they  are  seen; 
but  to  say  that  these  visible  manifestations  of  life  are 
life  itself,  is  confounding  visible  things  with  invisible; 
the  known  with  the  unknown;  the  sun  with  the  verdure 
with  which  its  light  and  warmth  cover  the  field  and  for- 
est. But  to  proceed.  "  But  back  of  conduct,  lies  the 
will;  and  back  of  the  will,  lie  motives."  I  know  very 
well  that  I  have  no  business  to  venture  my  little  canoe 
on  the  wide  ocean  of  metaphysics,  and  shall  attempt 
nothing  so  rash;  but  I  think  I  risk  nothing  in  asserting 
that  will  and  motive  are  entirely  separate  and  radically 
distinct  from  the  life  which  makes  the  exercise  of  the 
will  and  the  operation  of  motives  possible.  But  again. 
"  Back  of  motive,  lies  a  spirit,  a  disposition,  the  fountain- 
head  from  whence  the  life-stream  flows."  Here,  again, 
I  am  at  variance  with  my  brother,  for  the  Bible  teaches 
me  that  God  alone  is  the  Fountain-head  of  all  life. 
John  5  : 40,  which  reads,  "Ye  will  not  come  to  me  that 
ye  might  have  life,"  and  Ps.  36  :  9,  "For  with  me  is  the 
fountain  of  life,"  should  be  enough  to  settle  this  point. 

And  further,  "  The  radical  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  43 

says,  Go  to  the  fountain-head.  ....  Plant  in  the 
heart  a  new  spirit."  I  may  be  very  dull  of  comprehen- 
sion, but  to  my  mind  the  subject  is  getting  very  much 
mixed.  First,  "  The  spirit  was  the  fountain-head  from 
which  the  life-stream  flowed."  Now  it  is  the  heart  that 
is  the  fountain-head,  and  the  life  is  two  removes  from 
God:  First,  the  life  finding  its  fountain-head  in  the 
spirit  or  disposition;  then  the  heart  the  abode  of  the 
spirit.  Where  does  the  life  touch  the  Eternal  Word, 
who  says  of  himself,  "I  am  the  Life." 

But  when  this  new  spirit  or  disposition  is  implanted 
in  the  heart,  "  the  result  will  be  new  principles,  new  mo- 
tives, a  changed  will,  a  changed  life."  This  all  seems  to 
me  to  read  backward  if  the  earlier  part  of  this  definition 
is  correct;  for  there  the  foul  stream  of  man's  polluted 
nature  was  to  be  cured  and  rescued  from  ruin  and  de- 
pravity by  the  fresh  impartation  of  life  from  God;  but 
here  the  life  comes  in,  as  I  have  claimed  it  should,  at  the 
end,  as  the  outcome;  or,  as  my  brother  says,  "the  result 
of  new  principles,  new  motives,  a  changed  will."  But 
in  continuation,  "As  you  transform  a  tree  by  inserting 
into  it  a  living  scion  from  another  tree,  so  does  God 
graft  the  heart  with  a  new  spirit,  a  living  principle  from 
his  own  heart,  a  scion  from  the  tree  of  life;  and  presently 
the  man  is  a  new  man,  the  life  a  new  life;  God  opens  his 
heart,  and,  in  the  person  of  his  Son,  pours  out  his  life- 
blood  that  we  may  live  thereby.  He  offers  himself  to 
us,  saying,  This  is  my  body,  eat  it;  this  represents  my 
blood,  drink  it  all,  in  expressive  symbol  and  token  of  the 
great  central,  vital  truth,  that  he  is  the  life  of  our  life, 
that  we  live  in  him,  and  upon  him,  thus  becoming  par- 
takers of  the  divine  nature." 


44  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

I  must  say  that,  though  the  language  is  all  in  accord 
with  what  is  constantly  heard  from  the  pulpit,  when 
I  attempt  to  analyze  it,  and  bring  it  to  the  test  of  Script- 
ure, it  is  not  intelligible,  and  conveys  no  clear,  definite 
impression,  to  my  mind.  I  cannot  see,  from  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Bible,  how  eternal  life  is  any  factor  in  produc- 
ing holiness  in  men;  for  this  is  the  specific  work  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  upon  all  who,  accepting  Jesus  Christ  as  a 
Saviour,  are  made  partakers  of  the  benefits  of  his  medi- 
ation; first,  in  forgiveness  of  sin  and  justification  before 
God,  then  of  the  indwelling,  renewing,  comforting  pres- 
ence and  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  resurrection  of 
the  body,  and  the  end.  everlasting  life.  It  seems  to  me 
that  my  definition  is  simple,  where  the  other  is  involved; 
clear,  where  that  is  obscure;  scriptural,  where  that  is  not 
so;  and  definite  and  intelligible,  where  that  is  vague 
and  incomprehensible. 


CHAPTER    V. 


S  confirming  the  correctness  of  our  definition  of  life 
let  us  look  at  Heb.  7:23.  The  writer  says  that  un- 
der  the  Levitical  economy  there  must  of  necessity 
have  been  a  succession  of  priests,  because  one  after  an- 
other these  died,  leaving  their  office  vacant,  until  it  was 
filled  by  a  new  man.  But  Jesus,  "  Because  \\eabidetk  for- 
ever-hath  an  unchangeable  priesthood,"  and  in  the  next 
verse  we  learn  that  his  ability  to  save  completely  those 
who  put  their  trust  in  him,  rests  upon  the  fact  that  he  lives 
forever.  In  the  sixteenth  verse  the  radical  difference 
pointed  out  as  existing  between  the  Aaronic  priesthood 
and  that  of  Jesus,  is  that  the  former  was  according  to 
the  law  of  a  carnal  commandment,  the  other  according 
to  the  power  of  an  endless  life.  The  living  forever  of 
verse  25,  and  the  endless  life  of  verse  16,  which  so  dis- 
tinguish our  Great  High  Priest,  have  no  reference  to  his 
moral  nature  or  to  the  conditions  by  which  he  is  envi- 
roned, but  to  the  fact  that  he  possesses  in  himself  a  life 
which  is  unending. 

If  this  is  the  character  of  the  life  of  our  Lord,  why 
should  it  be  supposed  or  said  that  the  eternal  life  de- 
rived from  him  should  not  be  of  the  same  character? 
And  when,  as  in  John  3:16,  he  says  that  believers  in  him 

(45) 


46  THE  WOULD  TO  COME. 

should  never  perish,  but  have  eternal  life,  and  in  John 
10:  28,  "  and  I  give  unto  them  eternal  life,  and  they  shall 
never  perish,"  why  should  not  the  language  be  accepted 
in  its  ordinary  straightforward  meaning?  Isaiah  55:3 
says:  "  Hear,  and  your  soul  shall  live,  and  I  will  make 
an  everlasting  covenant  with  you,  even  the  sure  mercies 
of  David."  If  for  the  soul  to  live,  is  to  be  in  a  condi- 
tion of  beatific  holiness,  where  is  the  need  of  any  fur- 
ther covenanted  good?  All  that  it  can  possess  or  enjoy 
of  good  is  already  secured,  and  it  can  have  neither 
need  nor  capacity  for  more.  But  God  says  here,  "  Your 
soul  shall  live  and  I  will  make  an  everlasting  covenant 
with  you."  The  life  promised  is  evidently  one  thing  and 
the  covenanted  mercies  are  something  super-added  to 
the  life;  for  the  two  are  spoken  of  as  distinct. 

It  seems  to  me  that  it  has  been  shown  from  the 
Bible  that  the  life  which  is  given  to  men  by  Jesus 
Christ,  and  which  he  says  is  eternal  in  duration,  does 
not  consist  in  any  relation  which  man  sustains  towards 
God,  nor  in  the  conditions  or  surroundings  growing  out 
of  such  relation,  but  rather  in  the  conferring  of  a  princi- 
ple which  insures  perpetuity  of  being  to  the  regenerated 
man.  If  my  former  proposition  is  correct  that  death  is 
the  contrary  of  life,  the  Bible,  if  it  is  to  support  me  in 
my  definition,  should  represent  death  not  as  a  condition 
under  which  life  is  continued,  but  as  the  extinction  of 
life.  Incidentally  we  have  examined  this  question  par- 
tially, but  a  more  extended  and  careful  consideration  is 
necessary  for  a  satisfactory  answer,  and  I  pray  that  the 
reader  may  come  to  the  investigation  with  all  prejudices 
laid  aside,  and  with  a  sincere  desire  to  know  the  truth. 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  47 

Our  religious  teachers  tell  us  that  frequently,  indeed, 
generally,  as  used  in  the  Bible,  the  term  death  is 
to  be  qualified  by  the  adjective  u  spiritual,"  understood 
as  added  or  prefixed.  The  definition  given  to  the  term 
thus  amended  will  be  found  on  page  23,  chapter  2,  and 
page  37,  chapter  4,  and  it  is  unnecessary  to  repeat 
it,  but  it  seems  to  me  just  as  incorrect  to  say  that  such 
relations  towards  God  are  death,  as  it  would  be  to  say 
that  disloyalty  to  an  earthly  sovereign,  or  open  rebellion 
against  him  is  physical  death. 

In  all  civilized  countries  I  think  actual  treason  has 
death  for  its  penalty,  but  the  treasonable  condition  of  a 
man's  mind  and  the  plotting  with  his  fellow  conspira- 
tors cannot  with  the  least  propriety  be  styled  death. 
Under  the  government  of  God,  disloyalty  towards  him 
and  the  withholding  from  him  on  the  part  of  man  of  that 
full  allegiance  which  he  justly  demands,  has  death  affixed 
to  it  as  its  penalty;  but  to  say  that  this  state  of  disloy- 
alty and  rebellion,  called  in  the  Bible  sin,  is  death,  is  as 
incorrect  and  unwarrantable  as  would  be  the  calling  of 
the  treasonable  conduct  of  a  subject  of  a  human  gov- 
ernment, death.  There  is  another  sense  in  which  death 
is  used  by  our  religious  teachers  of  the  day,  interchang- 
ably  with  destruction,  either  term  being,  in  the  sense 
used,  as  unscriptural  as  the  one  above  called  spiritual 
death.  This  other  death,  or  destruction,  is  a  state  of 
intolerable  but  unmitigated  suffering,  which  the  finally 
impenitent  are  doomed  to  undergo  as  the  penalty  de- 
nounced against  transgression.  But  this  condition  of 
unrest,  of  ungratified  desire,  of  hopeless  despair,  and  in- 
extinguishable hatred  to  all  good,  is  no  more  death,  or 


48  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

destruction,  than  are  the  adverse  and  painful  circumstan- 
ces that  afflict  men  in  this  world  the  death  or  destruc- 
tion of  the  body.  A  man  may  suffer  excruciating  pain 
he  may  be  bereaved  and  sorrow  stricken,  he  may  be 
poor  and  friendless;  but  all  of  these,  or  any  other  con- 
ceivable surroundings  or  conditions,  cannot,  with  any 
propriety,  be  called  death  or  destruction.  Neither,  on 
the  other  hand,  can  any  condition  of  rank,  or  power,  or 
wealth,  or  happiness,  be  called  the  life  of  the  possessor, 
though  in  some  cases  they  may  prolong  or  shorten  it,  or 
make  it  more  or  less  enjoyable. 

Our  Lord  draws  very  clearly  and  unmistakably  the 
line  between  the  life,  and  those  things  which  modify  the 
conditions  of  a  living  being.  In  Mark  8:36,  he  asks, 
What  shall  it  profit  a  man,  if  he  shall  gain  the  whole 
world,  and  forfeit  his  life  ?  The  loss  of  his  life  takes 
from  him  every  opportunity  for  enjoying  the  pleasure 
which,  had  he  lived,  he  might  have  derived  from  the  pos- 
session of  every  source  of  earthly  good.  The  thought  is 
the  same  as  we  find  in  Luke  12:15:  "A  man's  life  con- 
sisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  the  things  which  hepos- 
sesseth."  And  the  original  of  this  word  "  consisteth," 
it  seems  to  me,  might  with  greater  propriety  be  rendered 
"  is  "  (a  man's  life  is  not,  etc.),  as  it  is  in  other  places  in 
both  the  authorized  and  revised  versions.  It  is  worthy 
of  note  that  the  Greek  word  translated  life,  is  zoe,  the 
same  that  is  invariably  used  with  the  adjective  when 
eternal  life  is  the  theme;  but  that  in  the  twenty-second 
and  twenty-third  verses  an  entirely  different  Greek  word 
is  found,  which  is  never  used  except  in  connection  with 
the  physical  stage  of  being.  These  quotations  from  the 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  49 

sayings  of  our  Lord,  show  that  the  world,  with  all  of 
material  good  with  which  it  can  surround  a  man,  is 
one  thing,  and  the  life  is  another,  and  entirely  differ- 
ent thing.  If,  then,  this  mortal  life  (psuche\  is  some- 
thing wholly  distinct  from  the  conditions  under  which  it 
is  maintained,  why  should  not  the  eternal  life  (zoe)t  be 
something  just  as  distinct  from  the  conditions  under 
which  it  is  maintained? 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  Old  Testament  and  see  if 
it  can  afford  us  any  light  upon  the  meaning  of  the  word. 
The  penalty  pronounced  by  the  Creator  against  trans- 
gression, was  death.  "  In  the  day  that  thou  eatest 
thereof,  thou  shalt  surely  die."  What  significance  the 
language  may  have  had  to  Adam,  we  cannot  tell.  He 
must  instinctively  have  shrunk  from  the  experience  in- 
dicated, because  God  had  affixed  it  as  a  punishment  for 
disobedience,  though,  possibly,  he  may  no  more  have 
understood  the  full  import  of  the  warning  than  would 
a  little  child  who  had  never  seen  or  heard  of  death. 
But  whatever  uncertainty  exists  in  our  minds  regarding 
the  meaning  of  the  word  to  Adam,  it  does  not  appear 
that  there  need  be  any  doubt  as  to  what  it  meant  to 
those  who  came  after  him,  down  to  the  time  when  the 
Sun  of  Righteousness  gave  at  least  a  twilight  glow  to 
the  previous  obscurity,  and  illumined  somewhat  the 
darkness  of  the  grave. 

The  recorded  sayings  of  Job,  David,  and  Heze- 
kiah  will  give  us  a  very  clear  idea  of  what  death 
meant  to  them,  and  these  we  will  now  take  up.  From 
the  way  in  which  the  Old  Testament  writers  speak  of 
physical  death,  it  is  plain  that  they  regarded  it  as 
4 


50  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

resulting  differently  to  different  persons.  For  such  as 
left  this  world  in  the  favor  of  God,  it  was  a  change  for 
the  better  in  all  cases;  and  to  the  tried  and  afflicted,  and 
sorrowful,  if  they  were  in  covenant  relations  with  God, 
it  was  a  blessed  release  from  present  evils,  and  the  en- 
trance upon  a  happier  and  an  enduring  stage  of  being. 
In  Ps.  16:10,  David,  speaking  of  the  result  of  phys- 
ical dissolution  to  him,  says,  "Thou  wilt  not  leave  my  soul 
in  hell,  neither  wilt  thou  suffer  thine  Holy  One  to  see 
corruption.  Thou  wilt  show  me  the  path  of  life,  in  thy 
presence  is  fullness  of  joy;  at  thy  right  hand  there  are 
pleasures  forevermore,"  and  in  Ps.  17:15,  "I  shall  be 
satisfied  when  I  awake  with  thy  likeness." 

To  take,  first,  the  testimony  of  Job.  In  the  tenth 
chapter  of  the  book  bearing  his  name,  we  find  the  pa- 
triarch apparently  less  distressed  by  his  bodily  suffer- 
ings, great  as  they  were,  than  by  his  inability  to  under- 
stand why  God  had  sent  them  upon  him;  and  the  chap- 
ter seems,  more  than  anything  else,  like  a  communing 
with  himself,  seeking  some  clue  to  lead  him  out  of  the 
darkness.  It  cannot  be,  he  says,  that  God  is  trying  me, 
to  discover  what  may  be  hidden  in  my  character,  for 
this  is  needless  for  him  who  himself  made  me  in  all  my 
parts,  and  has  that  perfect  knowledge  of  me  which  the 
maker  must  possess  regarding  the  work  of  his  own 
hands,  which  same  thought  David  very  beautifully  ex- 
presses in  the  one  hundred  and  thirty-ninth  psalm.  His 
meditations  seem  to  bring  him  no  light,  and  the  gloom 
deepens  around  him,  as  he  concludes  that  God  sees  sins 
in  him  of  which  he  is  unconscious,  and  for  these  is  cut- 
ting short  his  days.  He  is  sure  that  if  this  is  so,  and  he 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  51 

dies  under  the  displeasure  of  God,  that  he  could  hope 
for  nothing  afterward  but  the  reward  of  the  wicked. 
That  he  understood  this  to  be  extinction,  or  destruc- 
tion, is  plain  from  the  feelings  expressed  in  verses  18 
to  20,  and  in  other  passages;  for  had  Job  expected  an 
eternal  existence  beyond  the  grave  in  the  enjoyment  of 
God's  favor,  he  could  not  have  indulged  in  such  a  hope- 
less train  of  thought,  nor  have  given  way  to  such  des- 
perate suggestions  on  account  of  the  short  period  of  suf- 
fering he  had  to  endure,  bitter  though  it  was. 

Others,  since  his  day,  have  suffered  all  of  physical 
pain  that  could  be  inflicted  through  the  ingenuity  of 
man,  prompted  by  the  powers  of  darkness,  and  been 
upheld  by  the  thought  that  the  way  through  the  flames 
was  short,  and  the  end  perfect  and  enduring  peace  and 
blessedness.  Nor  had  the  friends  of  Job  expected  for 
him  eternal  bliss  beyond  the  grave,  can  it  be  imagined 
that  they  would  not  have  pointed  it  out  to  him,  as  the 
chief  source  of  his  hope  and  support?  But  nowhere 
do  they  allude  to  it.  On  the  other  hand,  had  Job  sup- 
posed sheol  was  the  ante-chamber  to  an. eternity  of  mis- 
ery, he  would  not  have  been  so  ready  to  pass  within  its 
portals.  The  fool,  who  says  there  is  no  God  nor  here- 
after, may,  by  his  own  rash  act,  terminate  his  earthly  ex- 
istence; but  not  so  he  who  anticipates  unending,  insup- 
portable anguish.  Job,  thinking  that  his  hope  of  accept- 
ance with  God  as  righteous  was  cut  off,  and  judgment 
given  against  him  as  a  sinner  for  some  reason  unper- 
ceived  by  himself,  earnestly  desires  cessation  of  his  pres- 
ent misery,  not  in  the  still  greater  misery  of  the  unend- 
ing fires  of  God's  punitive  wrath,  but  in  the  silence  and 


52  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

darkness  of  extinction  in  sJieol.  "  Cease,  then,  and  let 
me  alone,  that  I  may  take  comfort  a  little  before  I  go 
whence  I  shall  not  return,  even  to  the  land  of  darkness 
and  the  shadow  of  death."  Verses  20  and  21  could  not 
have  been  spoken  by  one  looking  forward  to  the  future 
life  as  one  of  supreme,  unending  felicity,  neither  are  they 
the  utterances  of  one  who,  beyond  the  grave,  expected  to 
enter  upon  a  state  of  unending  suffering;  but  only  of  a 
man  who,  possessed  of  the  idea  contained  in  the  eight- 
eenth and  nineteenth  verses,  expected  in  the  grave  to 
find  only  a  negative  good;  release  in  utter  extinction 
from  both  present  suffering  and  future  misery.  The 
fourteenth  chapter  affords  further  proof  respecting  the 
belief  of  Job  in  relation  to  a  future  state.  In  verses  7 
and  9,  he  says:  For  a  tree  that  is  cut  down  there  is  hope 
that  under  favorable  circumstances  it  may  sprout  again 
and  grow,  and  in  verses  loand  I2*speaks  of  the  dead  in 
contrast  with  this  as  without  any  such  hope.  "  Man 
giveth  up  the  ghost,  and  where  is  he?"  plainly  implying 
that  he  is  not.  "  Till  the  heavens  be  no  more  they  .shall 
not  awake  out  of  their  sleep."  Most  read  this  verse,. 
"  Man  lieth  down  and  riseth  not  till  the  heavens  be  no 
more,  when  he  shall  awake,"  as  if  Job  had  been  famil- 
iar with  the  third  chapter  of  2  Peter,  and  was  looking 
for  the  second  coming  of  our  Lord  without  sin  unto 
salvation,  to  destroy  the  world  and  create  a  new  heavens 
and  a  new  earth  wherein  should  dwell  righteousness, 
Very  far  from  this  appears  to  me  the  thought  of  Job, 
To  him  and  his  contemporaries,  the  visible  heavens  were 
the  types  of  permanence  and  immutability. 

Year  after   year,  generation    after  generation   had 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  53 

come  and  gone  since  the  heavens  first  told  of  the 
glory  of  God,  and  the  firmament  showed  his  handy- 
work,  and  still  they  remained  unchanged,  the  evi- 
dence of  the  wisdom  and  power  of  their  Creator,  the 
symbol  of  his  own  eternity;  and  to  endure  as  long  as 
the  sun  and  moon,  or  the  heavens,  is,  in  the  sacred 
writings,  equivalent  to  an  endless  duration.  The  psalm- 
ist says  in  Ps.  72:17:  "His  name  shall  endure  forever, 
his  name  shall  continue  as  long  as  the  sun."  And 
in  Ps.  89:29:  "  His  seed  will  I  make  to  endure  forever, 
and  his  throne  as  the  days  of  heaven;"  and  in  verses  36 
and  37:  "  His  seed  shall  endure  forever,  and  his  throne 
as  the  sun  before  me.  It  shall  be  established  forever,  as 
the  moon,  and  as  a  faithful  witness  in  heaven."  From 
these  examples  it  seems  clear  that  Job,  instead  of  antici- 
pating the  time  when  the  heavens  should  be  no  more, 
and  simultaneous  with  this  dissolution  the  dead  should 
be  raised,  had  the  very  contrary  idea  in  his  mind,  viz.: 
that  the  heavens  would  continue  forever,  as  would  the 
state  of  the  unforgiven  dead,  as  described  in  verse  12. 
It  is  not  of  all  men  that  Job  says  this,  for  in  verse  13  he 
asks  God  to  exempt  him  from  the  fate  of  such,  and  that 
to  him  might  be  allotted  a  temporary  abode  in  the 
grave,  and  a  time  fixed  by  God  for  his  redemption  from 
its  power.  This  entire  book  of  Job,  attentively  studied, 
conveys  the  idea  that  all  the  speakers,  while  they  ex- 
pected a  life  beyond  the  grave  for  those  who  left  this 
world  in  the  favor  of  God,  assume  that  for  all  of  the  oppo- 
site class  there  was  reserved  only  complete  extinction. 
In  the  sixth  psalm  and  fifth  verse,  David  echoes 
the  thoughts  of  Job  which  we  have  been  considering. 


54  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

David  had  been  brought  very  low  by  sickness,  which  he 
looked  upon  as  sent  by  God  in  token  of  his  displeasure, 
which  is  evident  from  the  first  verse;  and  the  teach- 
ings of  Moses  in  the  twenty-eighth  and  thirtieth  chap- 
ters of  Deuteronomy,  fully  warranted  him  in  so  inter- 
preting the  infliction.  His  prayer  is  that  the  sin  for 
which  the  punishment  is  sent  may  be  forgiven,  and  that 
in  token  of  this  forgiveness,  his  disease  may  be  healed; 
otherwise,  should  he  remain  unpardoned,  and  his  death 
result  as  a  mark  of  the  divine  displeasure,  he  would  ex- 
perience the  award  of  all  who  depart  this  life  under  the 
wrath  of  God;  and  this  was  extinction.  Upon  no  other 
explanation  can  we  account  for  such  sentiments  as  are 
found  in  the  fifth  verse.  To  the  righteous  dead,  David 
well  knew  that  beyond  the  grave  there  was  a  future 
wholly  at  variance  with  the  darkness,  and  silence,  and 
forgetfulness  of  God  depicted  here.  In  Psalm  17:15, 
when  the  cloud  had  been  withdrawn,  and  the  light  of 
God's  favor  shone  upon  him,  he  says,  :'  I  shall  be  satis- 
fied when  I  awake  in  thy  likeness;"  and  in  Ps;  23:4, 
"  Though  I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
death  I  will  fear  no  evil."  When  David  wrote  this  he 
did  not  expect  to  remain  forever  in  the  silence,  and 
darkness,  and  inaction  of  the  grave;  he  expected  to  go 
through  the  valley,  and  emerge  in  green  pastures  on  the 
other  side.  But  the  Lord  is  his  shepherd  now,  and  his 
favor  is  resting  upon  him;  and  in  the  one  hundred  and 
third  psalm  he  apostrophizes  his  soul  as  having  its  life 
redeemed  from  destruction  by  the  goodness  of  God. 
The  condition  of  mind  in  which  this  sixth  psalm  was 
written,  seems  referred  to  in  the  eighth  and  ninth  verses 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  55 

of  the  thirtieth  psalm,  and  the  result  of  God's  forgive- 
ness and  restoring  him  to  health,  was  that  he  might  sing 
praises,  and  not  be  silent.  Psalm  1 19:175  says:  "  Let  my 
soul  live,  and  it  shall  praise  thee." 

In  addition  to  the  testimony  of  Job  and  David 
upon  this  point,  we  have,  also,  that  of  Hezekiah,  in  the 
38th  chapter  of  Isaiah.  The  king  had  been  so  sick 
that  he  expected  to  die,  and  in  the  tenth  verse  he  says, 
"  In  the  cutting  off  of  my  days  I  shall  go  to  the  gates  of 
sheol;  I  am  deprived  of  the  residue  of  my  years."  His 
thoughts  seem  to  have  been,  In  my  prime  I  am  con- 
signed to  the  grave,  and  am  not  permitted  to  attain  to 
the  long  life  promised  those  who  enjoy  the  favor  of  God. 
This  is  conclusive  proof  that  God  is  angry  with  me,  for 
his  promise  to  those  who  fear  him,  is,  that  their  days 
shall  be  prolonged.  Psalm  91:16  says  of  such,  "with 
long  life  will  I  satisfy  him,"  and  Prov.  10:27,  "The  fear 
of  the  Lord  prolongeth  days,  but  the  years  of  the 
wicked  shall  be  shortened.  Job  15:20  reads:  "The 
wicked  man  travaileth  with  pain  all  his  days,  and  to 
the  oppressor  the  number  of  his  years  are  hidden," 
i.  £.,  he  has  no  security  regarding  his  life,  it  is  likely  to  be 
cut  off  at  any  moment,  and  in  verse  32,  "he  shall  come 
to  an  end  before  his  time,  and  his  branch  shall  not  be 
green,"  i.  e.,  it  shall  wither.  The  whole  teaching  of 
Deuteronomy  is  that  if  the  people  feared  and  obeyed 
God,  he  would  be  gracious  and  bless  them  in  all  ways, 
and  especially  with  length  of  days.  "  I  call  heaven  and 
earth  to  witness,"  says  Moses,  "that  I  have  set  before 
you  life  and  death,  blessing  and  cursing;  therefore  choose 
life  that  both  thou  and  thy  seed  may  live.  That  thou 


56  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

mayest  love  the  Lord  thy  God  and  that  thou  mayest 
cleave  unto  him,  for  he  is  thy  life,  and  the  length  of  thy 
days."  Deut  30:19,  20.  With  such  a  record  of  God's 
attitude  toward  the  transgressor,  and  with  the  conscious- 
ness of  his  own  short  comings  as  these  appear  in  2 
Chron.  32:25,  Hezekiah  drew  the  legitimate  conclusion 
that  he  was  being  cut  off  in  judgment,  which  would  con- 
sign him  to  sheol  as  an  eternal  prison-house.  Not  only 
would  his  eyes  close  upon  the  inhabitants  of  this  world, 
but  they  would  never  open  in  that  deathless  world,  that 
true  land  of  the  living  where  he  had  hoped  to  see  the 
King  in  his  beauty. 

If  Job,  David,  and  Hezekiah  are  to  be  taken  as  ex- 
ponents of  the  belief  of  their  times  regarding  the  future 
state,  we  must  conclude  that  the  generally  accepted 
doctrine  was  that  the  favor  of  God  insured  a  prolonged 
life,  and  that  to  be  cut  off  in  one's  prime  was  a  mark 
of  God's  displeasure,  which  left  no  place  for  repentance, 
but  was  only  the  prelude  to  death  in  its  radical  sense. 
Job  7:21;  Eze.  33:10. 

We  cannot  leave  this  part  of  our  field  without  con- 
sidering the  eighty-eighth  psalm,  which  in  sentiment  is 
closely  related  to  the  passage  from  Isaiah  just  before  us, 
and  to  the  sixth  psalm.  The  writer,  in  verse  5,  speaks  of 
the  wicked  cut  off  for  their  sins  as  no  more  remembered 
by  God;  and  in  verses  10,  n,  12,  says,  "Wilt  thou  show 
wonders  to  the  dead?  shall  the  dead  arise  and  praise 
thee?  shall  thy  loving  kindness  be  declared  in  the  grave, 
or  thy  faithfulness  in  destruction?  Shall  thy  wonders 
be  known  in  the  dark  ?  and  thy  righteousness  in  the  land 
of  forget  fulness? "  We  cannot  think  that  Job,  David, 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  57 

and  Hezekiah  meant  to  convey  the  idea  that  a  man  en- 
joying the  favor  of  God,  and  so  undergoing  physical 
dissolution,  lost  all  memory  of  God  or  ceased  to  praise 
him,  or  passed  into  any  state  in  the  least  analogous  to 
this;  for  this  is  contrary  to  the  whole  teaching  of  the 
Bible,  not  only  of  the  New  Testament,  but  of  the  Old 
as  well.  Such  as  felt  conscious  of  the  approval  of  God, 
looked  for  anything  rather  than  forgetfulness  of  him,  or 
silence  as  regarded  his  praise,  at  the  termination  of  this 
mortal  life. 

How  then  are  we  to  understand  these  passages  from 
these  writers  which  we  have  been  examining,  and  espe- 
cially this  eighty-eighth  psalm  ?  The  only  explanation 
satisfactory  to  my  mind  is,  that  the  accepted  doctrine  of 
those  ages  was  that  temporal  death  experienced  by  the 
wicked,  handed  them  over  hopelessly  to  the  power  of 
the  second  death,  which,  being  the  termination  of  con- 
scious existence,  would  make  perfectly  applicable  all  the 
foregoing  quotations,  and  many  other  passages  not 
quoted,  which  upon  any  other  ground  seem  wholly  un- 
intelligible. 

We  must  not  forget  that  while  our  Lord,  as  re- 
corded in  Mark  12:26,  27,  found  the  doctrine  of  a  future 
life  for  the  pious  dead*  in  Ex.  3:6,  he  deduces  from  the 
passage  nothing  respecting  the  future  of  the  wicked, 
leaving  this  question  untouched.  As  regards  this,  our 
knowledge  is  derived  from  sources  to  which  Old  Testa- 
ment believers  had  no  access;  and  their  belief,  it  seems 

*  Because    Abraham,  Isaac,  and     Jacob  were   living,  it   cannot    be 
asserted  that  Cain,  Korah,  and  Ahab,  id  genus  omne,  also  were  living. 


58  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

certain  to  me,  was,  that  while  beyond  the  grave  there 
was  a  future  for  the  friends  of  God;  for  his  enemies, 
sheol  was  a  place  of  inaction  and  unconsciousness;  a  land 
of  darkness  (Job  10:  21),  of  silence  (Ps.  115  :  17),  of  for- 
getfulness  (Ps.  88  :  \2}J forgotten  even  of  God  (Ps.  88  :  5). 
Can  language  convey  the  idea  of  utter  destruction  and 
extinction,  if  this  fails  to  do  so? 

The  forty-ninth  psalm  is  so  confirmatory  of  the 
above  conclusion,  and  shows  so  clearly  the  difference 
between  the  future  of  the  righteous  and  the  wicked,  that 
I  wish  to  call  attention  to  it  in  this  place.  Verses  6  and  9 
show  that  no  possible  influence  of  man  can  preserve  one 
of  the  race  from  death,  or  redeem  him  from  its  power 
when  once  within  its  dominions.  With  all  his  honor 
resting  upon  him  as  the  head  of  the  earthly  creation, 
man  "  abideth  not,"  does  not  continue,  but,  like  the 
beasts — his  inferiors  and  subjects — perishes.  "  Like 
sheep  they  are  laid  in  the  grave,"  it  being  the  habitation 
of  them  all. 

For  the  wicked  there  is  no  redemption — they  perish 
like  the  beast.  But  note  the  difference  in  the  case  of 
the  righteous:  "  God sJiall  redeem  my  soul  from  the  power 
of  the  grave."  This  is  his  only  hope  of  escape  from  the 
grasp  of  death.  If  not  rescued  by  God  he  expected  to 
perish.  Now  for  the  wicked  there  was  no  such  hope; 
the  redemption  of  their  souls  had  forever  ceased  when 
in  impiety  and  unreconciled  to  God  they  had  gone 
down  into  the  dominions  of  death;  and  as  none  but  God 
could  redeem  them,  and  as  they,  being  his  enemies,  could 
not  expect  his  interposition,  there  was  no  possibility  of 
their  redemption.  "  They  shall  go  to  the  generation  of 
their  fathers;  they  shall  never  see  light." 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  59 

I  do  not  see  how  the  truth  that  a  wicked  man  dying 
in  his  sins  ultimately  perishes  as  completely  as  does  the 
beast,  can  be  expressed  in  language  plainer  or  less  liable 
to  misunderstanding  than  in  the  twentieth  verse.  To 
use  more  words  would  to  me  appear  as  mere  verbiage. 
"  Man  that  is  in  honor  and  understandeth  not,  is  like  the 
beasts  that  cease  to  be."*  With  a  very  brief  considera- 
tion of  Eze.  33  : 10,  we  will  leave  this  part  of  our  investiga- 
tion. "If  our  transgressions  and  our  sins  be  upon  us,  and 
we  pine  away  in  them,  how  should  we  then  live." 

In  the  twenty-third  verse  of  chapter  4,  the  prophet 
had  told  them  that  the  judgments  of  God  should  be 
visited  upon  them,  and  "they  should  pine  away  for  their 
iniquities;"  and  when  later  he  seeks  to  encourage  them 
to  walk  in  better  paths,  they  reply  in  effect,  "Why  should 
we  attempt  it  ?  you  say  that  we  are  doomed  to  pine  away 
under  the  displeasure  of  God,  and  if  this  is  so,  we  can 
have  no  hope  of  a  future  life."  That  the  life  referred 
to  is  that  of  the  world  to  come,  and  not  this  mortal  life, 
is  plainly  seen  by  the  verses  before  and  following.  The 
very  fact  of  physical  death,  sent  upon  them  in  such  a 
way,  was  to  them  conclusive  that  once  in  skeol  God 
would  no  more  remember  them;  and  their  hope  of  es- 
cape from  that  land  of  silence  and  darkness  where  are 
the  slain  whom  God  had  erased  from  the  tablets  of  his 
memory,  was  utterly  cut  off. 

*  The  Hebrew  damah,  translated  "perish"  inverse  20,  means  "to 
cease,"  "to  be  cut  off." 


CHAPTER  VI. 


(HE  figurative  and  metaphorical  expressions  of  the 
sacred  writers  all  agree  with  the  foregoing  defini- 
tion of  death,  and  with  no  other.  The  simile  more 
generally  used  than  any  other  to  illustrate  the  deal- 
ings of  God  with  the  wicked,  is  the  action  of  fire  upon 
material  objects.  In  Deut.  4 :  24  Moses  tells  the  people 
that  the  Lord  is  a  "consuming  fire."  The  only  other 
relation  he  is  represented  as  holding,  to  men,  under  this 
figure  is  this  of  a  refiner's  fire,  and  this  is  only  towards 
his  redeemed  ones.  Mai.  3:2,  3.  Nowhere  is  he  repre- 
sented as  a  withering,  scorching  fire,  inflicting  pain  while 
leaving  the  object  of  its  assault  intact  and  in  being, 
though  damaged  and  disfigured.  The  invariable  an- 
nouncement is  that  he  will  consume  his  enemies.  As 
the  fat  of  rams,  when  subjected  to  the  action  of  material 
fire,  becomes  dissipated  in  smoke  and  passes  away,  so 
in  the  day  of  the  revelation  of  the  wrath  of  God  against 
all  unrighteousness  the  wicked  shall  perish  and  be  no 
more.  This  is  the  purport  of  Ps.  37:20.  Malachi  is 
still  more  explicit,  and  says  the  coming  of  the  Lord 
shall  burn  up  the  wicked  root  and  branch.  It  seems 
strange  to  me  that  any  one  should  claim  that  the  con- 
suming fires  of  the  divine  presence  here  spoken  of  will 
merely  affect  the  happiness  of  those  who  come  under 
(60) 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  61 

their  power.  If  words  can  be  made  to  convey  the  idea 
of  entire,  irretrievable  consumption  and  extinction,  then 
these  certainly  do.  To  take  a  field  filled  with  bushes 
and  stubble,  and  subject  it  to  the  action  of  material  fire 
till  every  vestige  of  vegetation  is  destroyed  root  and 
branch,  can  be  used  as  an  illustration  of  nothing  less 
than  the  utter  extinction  of  the  wicked,  who  stand  in 
the  same  relation  to  the  fires  of  God's  holiness  that  the 
stubble  does  to  the  fires  of  earth.  If  this  merely  plays 
about  the  bushes,  scorching  and  defacing  the  freshness 
and  beauty  of  their  appearance,  but  leaving  them  still 
possessed  of  life  and  being,  then  may  the  fires  of  the 

The  Hebrew  word  here  in  Ps.  37:20,  translated  perish,  is  abad,  and 
primarily  means  to  be  lost,  and  is  sometimes  so  translated,  for  instance,  in 
I  Sam.  9:3,  20,  and  in  two  or  three  other  places,  but  in  the  great  major- 
ity of  instances  the  connection  will  not  permit  of  this  rendering,  the  idea 
from  the  context  being  that  the  being  or  thing  alluded  to  is  killed  or  de- 
stroyed. Num.  16:33  savs  tnat  Korah  and  his  company  were  swallowed 
up  in  the  earth  and  perished.  Job  3:3,  "Let  the  day  perish  wherein  I 
was  born."  Ps.  37:20,  "The  wicked  shall  perish,  and  the  enemies  of 
the  Lord  shall  be  like  the  fat  of  rams."  Ps.  102:26,  "They  shall  perish, 
but  Thoushalt  endure."  Jonah  4:10,  it  "came  in  a  night,  and  perished  in 
a  night."  These  are  a  few  out  of  nearly  100  texts  where  the  Hebrew  word 
abad  cannot  be  translated  by  the  English  word  "lost,"  and  preserve  the 
meaning  of  the  passage,  the  English  word  "destroyed"  or  "perished" 
being  the  nearest  eqiiivalent  that  can  be  found,  and  in  something  like  sixty 
places  it  is  translated  "destroyed,"  as  in  Lev.  23:30,  Num.  33:52,  2  Kings 
i i:i,  Esther  9:6,  Ps.  5:6,  9:5,  Jer.  12:17.  Once  in  Psalm  49,  in  verse  ie, 
we  have  abad  translated  "perish,"  but  in  verses  12  and  20  "perish"  is  repre- 
sented in  the  original  by  the  Hebrew  word  damah,  meaning  "to  be  cut 
off,"  "to  cease."  The  Hebrew  word  kalah,  translated  "consumed"  in 
the  2Oth  verse  of  the  37th  Psalm,  is  very  strong,  and  means  "to  be  fin- 
ished" or  "brought  to  an  end."  I  Sam.  3:12,  "make  an  end,"  2  Chr. 
20,  23,  and  many  others.  It  also  is  translated  consume  about  forty 
times,  as  in  Ex.  32:10,  Num.  16:21,  2  Kings  13:19,  Eze.  20:13. 


62  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

Judgment  similarly  affect  the  finally  impenitent  But  if, 
on  the  contrary,  the  literal  fire  when  most  intense  follows 
the  roots  beneath  the  surface,  and  destroys  the  very 
sources  of  life,  so  the  eternal  fires  of  God's  holiness 
and  hatred  of  sin  shall  feed  upon  and  consume  all  those 
who  at  the  day  of  trial  are  not  partakers  of  eternal,  in- 
destructible life,  through  the  acceptance  of  the  offices 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

Referring  to  the  quality  ascribed  to  God  by  Moses  at 
the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  we  find  that  the  Hebrew 
word  translated  "consume"  in  this  verse  (Deut.  4:24)  is 
akal;  and  the  same  word  is  found  in  Judges  6:21;  I  Kings 
18  :  38;  2  Kings  I  :  10,  12;  Job  31:12.  In  all  these 
places  it  can  mean  only  the  devouring  or  obliterating  of 
the  object  affected.  The  same  word  akal  is  used  in 
Isaiah  5  :  24,  and  is  translated  devoureth,  and  again  in 
Joel  2  :  5,  also  2  Kings  1:14,  where  Elijah  called  for  fire 
from  heaven  and  it  burned  up  the  men  sent  to  take  him, 
akal  is  the  original  of  "  burned  up."  In  more  than  one 
hundred  and  fifty  places,  this  word  occurs  in  the  Old 
Testament,  and  in  but  two  or  three  can  it  mean  any- 
thing else  than  the  devouring  or  obliterating  of  the  ob- 
ject acted  upon.  There  are  a  variety  of  words  in  the 
Hebrew  vocabulary  to  express  prolonged  suffering,  crush- 
ing sorrow,  trouble,  and  wasting  away,  had  the  Holy  Spirit 
intended  to  teach  that  misery  or  suffering  were  to  be  the 
portion  of  the  wicked,  instead  of  destruction,  as,  for  in- 
stance, the  following:  ed.kid,  mehuma,mechitta,pid,shad, 
ashem,  shoa,  shamem,  meaning,  respectively,  in  the  order 
named,  "  calamity,"  "  misfortune,"  "  trouble,"  "  downfall," 
"  ruin,"  "  spoiling,"  "  to  make  desolate."  None  of  these, 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  63 

however,  so  far  as  I  can  find,  are  used  in  connection 
with  the  final  doom  of  the  enemies  of  God.  Neither 
pain,  suffering,  distress,  anguish,  sorrow,  misfortune, 
misery,  or  affliction,  though  often  used  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment in  relation  to  other  things,  are  any  of  them, 
so  far  as  I  can  learn,  ever  applied  to  the  condition 
of  the  finally  condemned;  but  the  idea  of  their  condi- 
tion is  sought  to  be  conveyed  by  such  words  as  akal,  to 
devour  (see  previous  reference),  kalah,  to  be  consumed, 
Ps.  37  :  20  (see  note,  page  61),  abad,  to  perish  or  to  be 
destroyed  (see  same  reference),  and  shatkatk,  destruction, 
Ps.  55  :  23;  103  14. 

To  turn  now  from  the  Old  Testament  to  the  New, 
from  the  last  chapter  of  the  last  book  of  the  former  to 
the  third  of  the  first  of  the  latter,  we  find  in  Matt.  3:11, 
12,  a  repetition  of  the  thought  we  have  just  had  before 
us.  John  the  Baptist  says  of  Jesus  Christ  that  "  he  shall 
baptize  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  fire,"  that  "  he 
will  thoroughly  purge  his  floor  and  gather  the  wheat 
into  his  garner,  but  will  burn  up  the  chaff  with  un- 
quenchable fire."  I  understand  that  here,  as  in  Malachi 
3  :  2,  3  and  4:1,  there  are  two  distinct  offices  attached 
to  the  person  of  the  Messiah.  Mai.  3:3,  he  sits  as 
a  refiner  of  silver  to  purge  away  all  the  dross 
from  his  chosen  ones,  and  in  4  :  I  as  a  consuming  fire  to 
consume  and  exterminate!  all  who  oppose  themselves. 
Here  in  Matthew  the  baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost  cor- 
responds with  Mai.  3  :  3,  and  the  baptism  of  fire  with 
Mai.  4:1.  The  effect  in  both  Malachi  and  Mat- 
thew is  the  same,  the  sanctification  of  his  people, 
the  consumption  of  his  enemies.  I  am  aware  that  the 


64  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

baptism  of  fire,  Matt.  3  :  1 1,  is  generally  referred  to  Acts 
2  ;  3  as  its  fulfillment,  but  this  appears  unwarranted  and 
foreign  to  the  meaning. 

Mark  and  John,  though  both  speak  of  the  baptism 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  say  nothing  about  that  of  fire;  but 
Matthew  and  Luke  speak  of  both,  and  alike  connect 
with  the  prediction  the  separation  of  the  wheat  from 
the  chaff  fand  the  burning  up  of  the  latter.  There  was 
no  such  separation  and  burning  up  at  Pentecost;  and  it 
should  be  observed  that  the  prediction  is  that  Jesus  shall 
baptize  with  fire,  while  Acts  2  :  3  says  that  the  pente- 
costal  baptism  was  of  "cloven  tongues  like  as  of  fire," 
i.  e.,  the  tongues  representing  the  miraculous  gift  of 
speaking  in  languages  never  learned,  were  cloven,  like  the 
forked,  darting  flame,  typical  of  the  multiplicity  of 
languages  those  thus  endowed  should  be  able  to  speak. 
As  the  flame  at  its  base  is  one,  but  as  it  ascends  divides 
into  several  parts,  so  these  symbolic  tongues  given  to 
the  apostles  by  which  they  were  to  witness  for  Jesus, 
were,  towards  their  ends,  divided  like  flames  of  fire. 
Matt.  3:11  says  he  shall  baptize  you  with  fire,  not  with 
something  like  as  to  fire.  It  is  worthy  of  note  just  here 
that  the  apostles  do  not  refer  this  gift  of  tongues  to  the 
predicted  baptism  of  fire,  but  to  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
promised  in  Joel  2:  29;  and  this  was  to  precede  and  is  en- 
tirely distinct  from  that  great  and  terrible  day  spoken  of 
by  the  Baptist  in  verse  12,  when  the  Son  of  man  shall 
come  in  power  to  gather  in  his  elect  and  consign  his 
enemies  to  the  consuming  effects  of  everlasting  fire. 
The  fact  that  Peter  in  his  sermon  made  no  reference  to 
Matt.  3:12,  but  passed  over  that  in  silence,  and  found 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  65 

in  Joel  the  prediction  that  was  then  being  fulfilled,  is  suf- 
ficient to  show  that  in  the  mind  of  these  inspired 
apostles  there  was  no  connection  between  the  baptism 
of  fire  of  Matt.  3:11  and  the  tongues  like  as  of  fire  that 
sat  upon  them  at  Pentecost.  In  Acts  10  : 44,  46  the  gift 
of  tongues  to  the  believers  of  the  household  of  Cor- 
nelius was  recognized  by  Peter,  in  chapter  1 1  :  16,  as  the 
baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost  predicted  by  John  the 
Baptist,  and  he  says  it  was  the  same  that  they  received 
"  at  the  beginning,"  which  must  mean  at  Pentecost. 

The  baptism  of  fire  as  it  affects  the  wicked  can  be 
seen  in  the  parable  of  the  tares  and  the  wheat  (Matt.  13-. 
24,  40),  and  from  the  explanation  which  our  Lord  him- 
self gives  to  it,  there  does  not  seem  any  room  for 
misapprehension  regarding  the  language  here  used  by 
him.  He  says  in  the  parable,  in  the  thirtieth  verse,  that 
at  the  harvest  he  will  instruct  the  reapers  to  gather  the 
tares  in  bundles  and  burn  them;  and  in  verse  40,  in  ex- 
plaining the  parable  to  the  twelve  in  private,  says,  "  As 
therefore  the  tares  are  gathered  and  burned  in  the  fire, 
so  shall  it  be  with  the  wicked  at  the  termination  of  this 
dispensation;  they  shall  be  separated  from  the  righteous 
and  consigned  to  the  flames."  When  a  gardener  has 
gathered  from  his  ground  a  quantity  of  noxious  weeds, 
and  as  the  most  effectual  mode  pf  destroying  them,  and 
leaving  no  germ  for  their  reproduction,  kindles  a  fire 
and  burns  them  up,  what  is  his  purpose  in  the  act? 
Surely  his  purpose  is  to  destroy  them  utterly,  and  this  is 
what  our  Lord  says  shall  be  done  to  the  finally  impeni- 
tent. At  one  time  the  Canada  thistle  caused  great  an- 
noyance in  my  garden;  even  when  pulled  up  by  the 
5 


66  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

roots,  if  allowed  to  remain  on  the  ground,  the  seed 
would  mature  and  perpetuate  the  plant,  so  that  later  I 
had  them  pulled  up  by  the  roots,  and  at  once  put  in  the 
fire.  Did  they  remain  intact  though  a  little  scorched 
and  shriveled  ?  Did  I  expect  this  would  be  the  case  ? 
Most  certainly  not.  I  expected  they  would  be  burned 
up  root  and  seed,  and  I  was  not  disappointed.  This  is 
just  what  any  one  would  look  for  under  the  circum- 
stances; and  when  our  Lord  told  his  disciples  that  as 
the  fires  of  earth  consumed  and  burned  up  the  tares,  so 
the  fires  of  the  Judgment  day  should  affect  the  wicked, 
he  must  have  intended  them  to  understand  that  this  was 
to  be  the  end  of  them;  not  instantaneous,  perhaps,  for  it 
takes  a  little  time  to  burn  up  green  weeds,  but  ultimately 
the  effect  of  the  fire  would  be  to  consume  and  destroy 
those  who  were  cast  into  it. 

If  it  is  permissible  to  say,  "  As  therefore  the  tares 
are  consumed  by  the  fire,  so  it  shall  not  be  with  the 
wicked  at  the  end  of  the  world,  for  they  shall  be  cast  into 
the  fire  but  shall  not  be  consumed,"  then  it  would  seem 
as  if  one  might,  at  his  own  pleasure  or  whim,  prove  any- 
thing he  chooses  from  the  Bible.  The  Greek  word  trans- 
lated "  burn,"  both  in  verses  30  and  40,  is  katakaio 
and  means  to  burn  down;  we  find  it  in  Acts  19:19,  where 
the  magicians  "brought  their  books  together  and  burned 
them."  It  is  also  found  in  Rev.  18:8,  where  it  is  used 
in  relation  to  the  mystical  Babylon,  and  there  is  trans- 
lated both  in  the  authorized  and  revised  versions  as  "  ut- 
terly burned,"  and  any  one  who  will  read  the  full  descrip- 
tion cannot  avoid  the  conclusion  that  the  destruction  is 
to  be  complete  and  enduring,  for  verse  21  says,  "She 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  67 

shall  be  found  no  more  at  all."  How  can  entire  oblit- 
eration be  more  emphatically  expressed  ?  If  katakaio 
means  this  here,  why  should  it  not  be  taken  to  mean 
the  same  in  Matt.  3:12  and  13  :  30,  40  and  Luke  3:17? 
So  far  as  I  can  find,  there  is  in  the  Bible  no  allusion  to 
any  custom  among  the  Jews  of  the  use  of  fire  as  a 
means  of  inflicting  torture  upon  enemies  or  criminals 
condemned  to  punishment,  neither  did  the  nations  about 
them  so  employ  it;  and  when,  in  their  scriptures  or 
in  the  mouths  of  their  prophets,  the  action  of  fire  is 
referred  to  in  connection  with  the  enemies  of  God,  it 
could  in  the  mind  of  a  Jew  have  had  but  one  asso- 
ciation, and  that  was  with  their  utter,  complete,  irremedi- 
able destruction. 

We  read  in  the  third  of  Daniel  that  when  the  three 
young  men  were,  by  order  of  the  king,  cast  into  the 
furnace,  it  was  not  for  the  purpose  of  inflicting  suffer- 
ing, but  to  put  an  end  to  their  lives.  And  that  this  was 
not  the  effect  is  ascribed  by  the  king  only  to  the  inter- 
position of  a  wonder-working  God,  who  appeared  for  the 
deliverance  of  his  servants.  Who,  then,  is  to  interpose 
between  the  fires  of  the  bottomless  pit  and  those  who 
are  exposed  to  their  consuming  flames  ?  Most  surely 
not  he  who  walked  amid  the  fires  with  Shadrach,  Mes- 
hach  and  Abednego,  and  "  he  i5  the  only  one  who  can 
deliver  after  this  sort."  Mark  9  :  43,  48  is  another  pas- 
sage direct*  from  the  lips  of  our  Lord,  which,  though 
often  quoted  as  an  argument  against  the  destruction  of 
the  wicked,  appears  to  me  entirely  misapplied.  The 
illustration  is  taken  from  the  Valley  of  Hinnom,  where 
all  the  refuse  from  the  temple  was  taken  and  burned, 


68  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

and  anything  that  by  chance  escaped  the  fire  fell  a  prey 
to  the  worms  that  were  bred  in  the  filth  and  pollution 
of  the  place.  Our  Lord  appears  to  quote  from,  or  at 
least  refer  to,  Isaiah  65 :  24  where  the  prophet  says, 
"  They  shall  .  .  .  look  upon  the  carcasses  of  the 
transgressors,  for  their  worm  shall  not  die,  neither  shall 
their  fire  be  quenched."  These  are  the  carcasses  of  men> 
not  living,  sentient  beings.  It  appears  to  me  that 
.Gehenna,  typified  by  the  Valley  of  Hinnom,  and  to 
which  our  Lord  here  assigns  the  transgressors,  offers  ab- 
solutely no  hope  for  its  inmates.  There  might  be  a 
bare  possibility  that,  through  the  neglect  of  the  watch- 
ers the  material  fires  in  the  Valley  of  Hinnom  would  go 
out  from  lack  of  fuel;  through  some  possible  chance, 
the  worms  that  fed  upon  its  festering  heaps  might  be- 
come extinct;  but  the  fires  of  God's  holiness,  their  con- 
suming effect  upon  everything  sinful  when  brought 
under  their  influence,  could  never  cease  to  operate,  for 
they  are  as  eternal  and  unchangeable  as  himself.  Where,, 
then,  is  there  the  least  possibility  of  escape  for -those  ex- 
posed to  their  power  ? 

This  passage,  it  seems  to  me,  is  often,  in  fact  gener- 
ally, misinterpreted  by  those  who  quote  it  in  support  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  endless  misery  and  suffering  of  the 
wicked.  They  explain  and  enforce  it  as  if  our  Lord  had 
said,  "  Those  who  are  consigned  to  this  fearful  place 
shall  never  die;  their  vital  forces  shall  never  suffer  dim- 
inution, but,  as  exhausted  by  the  fire  and  worm,  shall  be 
constantly  renewed,  thai  they  may  be  capable  of  resist- 
ing still  further  drains;"  whereas,  he  says  no  such  thing. 
And  the  undying  qualities  spoken  of  have  no  reference 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  69 

to  the  wicked  themselves,  but  apply  wholly  to  those 
forces  which  are  at  work  for  their  destruction.  Jude  7 
is  a  parallel  passage.  The  cities  of  the  plain  are  said 
to  be  "  suffering  the  vengeance  of  eternal  fire."  The 
forces  employed  by  God  for  the  destruction  of  these 
cities  are  eternal,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  the  cities 
were  able  to  resist  the  destructive  effects  of  these  eternal 
forces;  the  exact  contrary  was  the  case,  and  they  suc- 
cumbed at  once.  The  instrumentalities  employed  by 
God  may  be  eternal,  but  the  material  which  came  under 
their  operation  was  perishable.  So  the  typical  fire  and 
worm  of  Gehenna  are  eternal,  but  the  wicked  who  shall  be 
handed  over  to  their  assaults  are  perishable. 

In  Matt.  10:  28  our  Lord  says  that  God  is  able  to 
destroy  both  soul  and  body  in  Gehenna,  for  this  is  the 
word  translated  hell,  in  both  places.  This  is  fully  in  ac- 
cord with  his  word  in  Mark  9  :  43,  48  which  we  have 
just  been  studying.  The  true  scope  of  this  language, 
it  seems  to  me,  is  lost  sight  of,  and  an  erroneous  conclusion 
drawn  from  this  passage  quite  as  often,  and  with  a  result 
equally  far  from  the  truth.  Our  Lord  does  not  say  that  God 
is  able  to  destroy  the  happiness,  or  symmetry,  or  moral 
beauty  of  the  soul  in  Gehenna;  he  does  not  mention  these 
or  any  other  attribute  or  quality  pertaining  to  the  soul  of 
man  that  he  is  able  to  destroy,  t*ut  the  entire  man,  body 
and  soul,  with  all  that  pertains  to  them.  When  our  relig- 
ious teachers  tell  us  that  the  language  used  by  the  Great 
Teacher  is  not  to  be  understood  in  its  plain,  most  ap- 
parent meaning,  they  should  be  able  to  show  us  from 
some  authority  equal  with  his,  that  he  is  speaking  figur- 
atively or  enigmatically,  in  neither  of  which  senses  can  his 


70  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

language  here  or  in  Luke  12:5  or  21  :  14,  18  be  taken; 
for  in  all  these  places  he  is  using  the  simplest,  most  direct 
form  of  speech  to  impress  upon  his  disciples  the  duty 
and  privilege  of  committing  themselves  to  the  care  of 
God,  whose  purposes  of  love  no  power  of  earth  or  hell 
could  frustrate. 

Instead  of  finding  in  the  Scriptures  anything 
to  warrant  us  in  attaching  to  these  teachings  of 
our  Lord  any  meaning  other  than  that  most  appar- 
ent upon  thejr  surface,  the  whole  tenor  of  the  Bible  is 
just  to  the  contrary.  2  Thess.  I  :  9  is  one  instance  of 
this.  Speaking  of  those  who  are  transgressors  of  God's 
law,  Paul  says,  "  They  shall  be  punished  with  everlast- 
ing destruction  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord  and  from 
the  glory  of  his  power."  The  New  Version  reads,  "  Who 
shall  suffer  punishment,  even  eternal  destruction  from 
the  face  of  the  Lord."  The  writer  says  the  cause  of  this 
destruction  is  "the  presence  of  the  Lord."  Mai.  3  :  2 
asks:  "Who  may  abide  the  day  of  his  coming?  and  who 
shall  stand  when  he  appeareth  ?  for  he  is  like  a  re- 
finer's fire.  Ex.  24:17  says,  "And  the  sight  of 
the  glory  of  the  Lord  was  like  devouring  fire.J> 
Deut.  9:3:  "The  Lord  thy  God  is  he  that  goeth 
over  before  thee;  as  a  consuming  fire  shall  he  destroy. 
Ps.  97  :  3:  "A  fire  goeth  before  him  and  burneth  up  his 
enemies."  Isa.  10:17:  "And  the  light  of  Israel  shall 
be  for  a  fire,  and  his  Holy  One  for  a  flame."  Isa.  66: 
15:  "For  behold  the  Lord  will  come  with  fire  .  .  . 
to  render  his  anger  with  fury  and  his  rebukes  with 
flames  of  fire,  for  by  fire  and  by  his  sword  will  the  Lord 
plead  with  all  flesh."  The  consuming,  destroying  effect 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  71 

of  the  presence  of  God  upon  all  sin,  is  everywhere  taught 
in  the  Bible,  of  which  the  foregoing  are  a  few  examples. 
Nowhere  is  his  presence  represented  as  producing  pro- 
tracted suffering,  but  invariably  destruction.  (See  Gen. 
32:30;  Ex.  33:20;  Deut.  5:25;  Judges  13:22.) 

The  context  in  this  first  chapter  of  2  Thessalonians 
teaches  that  the  same  glorious  presence  which  causes 
the  destruction  of  his  enemies,  brings  "  rest  "  and  "  ad- 
miring joy"  to  his  redeemed  ones.  This  agrees  with 
Isa.  33  :  14,  15:  "Only  he  that  \valketh  righteously  and 
speaketh  uprightly,  he  that  despiseth  the  gain  of  oppres- 
sion, that  shaketh  his  hand  from  holding  of  bribes,  and 
shutteth  his  eyes  from  seeing  evil,"  can  hope  to  dwell 
amid  the  fires  of  God's  holy  presence.  In  Acts  3:19 
we  find  this  same  expression,  "  from  the  presence  of  the 
Lord,"  and  there  Peter  speaks  of  it  as  bringing  times  of 
refreshing,"  which  corresponds  to  the  rest  and  abound- 
ing joy  of  2  Thessalonians,  which  is  the  result  of  his 
presence  to  his  people,  though  in  the  twenty-third  verse 
Peter  says  all  of  the  opposite  class  shall  be  destroyed. 
In  2  Thessalonians  Paul  does  not  say  they  shall  be  de- 
stroyed with  eternal  punishment  through  banishment 
from  the  presence  of  the  Lord,  though  the  verse  is 
often,  if  not  generally  quote^l  and  used  as  if  he 
did.  The  Greek  apo  here  rendered  "from  "  also  means 
"with."  (See  Luke  14:8-15;  16:16,  21.)  It  is  also  trans- 
lated "  by,"  in  Matthew  7:16;  Acts  9:13;  12:20;  2 
Cor.  3:18;  7  :  13;  Heb.  5  :  8;  and  in  Acts  3  :  19,  quoted 
above,  it  seems  as  if  it  can  mean  nothing  else.  For 
some  reason,  probably  sufficient  to  themselves,  the  au- 
thors of  the  New  Version  have  departed  from  their  rule 


72  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

of  rendering  the  same  word  in  Greek  by  the  same  word  in 
English,  and  in  Acts  3  :  19  translate prosopon,  "presence;" 
while  in  2  Thess.  I  :  19  they  translate  it  "face."  The 
plain  assertion  of  the  passage  in  Thessalonians,  taken  in 
its  unity,  is  that  the  finally  impenitent,  in  that  day 
which  Paul  speaks  of  (Acts  17  :  31),  shall  be  eternally  de- 
stroyed, not  punished  with  banishment  from  God  and 
the  glorious  perfections  of  his  character,  and  the  at- 
tendant purity  and  beauty  of  his  surroundings.  This 
would  be  no  punishment  either  in  anticipation  or  reality. 
They  see  nothing  to  admire  or  emulate  in  his  perfections, 
and  have  no  desire  for  purity  in  themselves  or  holiness 
in  their  associates. 

The  eighth  verse  of  the  second  chapter  of  this 
epistle  confirms  our  interpretation  of  the  passage  under 
consideration.  We  are  there  told  that  the  lawless  shall 
be  consumed  by  the  brightness  or,  as  the  New  Version 
says,  "  the  manifestation  "  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord 
Jesus.  The  New  Version  adopts  the  text  of  the  three 
most  authoritative  manuscripts,  and  reads  "  slay  "  in- 
stead of  u  consume."  This  lawless  one  shall  be  slain  or 
killed  by  the  same  coming  of  the  Lord  spoken  of  in 
chapter  I,  which  coming  was  to  bring  similar  destruc- 
tion to  the  incorrigibly  wicked.  It  appears  like  a  waste 
of  time  and  space  to  reinforce  such  plain  truths  as  the 
above  with  other  scriptures;  but  as  this  is  not  written 
for  those  who  are  convinced  that  destruction  is  to  come 
upon  the  wicked,  but  for  those  who  think  they  are  not 
to  be  destroyed,  but  to  be  preserved  and  made  eternally 
miserable,  one  or  two  more  of  the  many  texts  containing 
the  same  truths  may  not  be  superfluous.  Ps.  92  :  7  says, 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  73 

"When  all  the  workers  of  iniquity  do  flourish  it  is  that 
they  shall  be  destroyed  forever."  Num.  24 :  20  says: 
"Amalek  was  the  first  of  the  nations,  but  his  latter  end 
shall  be  that  he  perish  forever."  Is  eternal  suffering  in 
the  remotest  degree  intimated  in  the  case  of  Amalek  ? 
By  no  means,  but  an  endless  destruction  or  extinction, 
without  the  possibility  of  a  revival.  So  when  it  says 
the  wicked  "  shall  be  destroyed  forever,"  it  does  not 
mean  that  they  shall  be  tormented  forever,  but  that  their 
destruction  or  extinction  shall  be  so  complete  that  there 
shall  be  no  possibility  of  a  revival.  Again,  Ps.  145  :  20: 
"  The  Lord  preserveth  all  them  that  love  him,  but  all 
the  wicked  will  he  destroy."  Does  this  refer  merely  to 
the  preservation  of  the  righteous  from  the  calamities 
incident  to  this  stage  of  being  and  the  disappointment 
of  the  plans  and  expectations  of  the  wicked  ?  There 
is  nothing  said  about  happiness  or  prosperity  as  either 
preserved  or  destroyed;  it  is  the  two  classes  of  men  that 
are  thus  treated;  the  one  is  preserved  from  destruction, 
the  other  given  over  to  its  power;  and  this,  not  as  re- 
lates to  this  present  stage  of  being,  but  as  the  ultimate, 
unchangeable  award.  When  God  says  he  will  destroy 
a  man,  who  has  the  right  to  say  he  will  not  do  it,  but 
only  so  change  the  conditions  toy  which  the  man  is  sur- 
rounded as  to  impair  or  destroy  his  comfort  or  happi- 
ness ?  To  destroy  a  man's  happiness  is  one  thing,  and 
may  be  done  in  many  ways,  for  he  is  the  creature  of 
circumstances;  but  to  destroy  the  man  himself  is  some- 
thing very  different,  for  he  is  the  creature  of  God,  and 
can  only  be  destroyed  by  the  same  power  that  gave  him 
being. 


74  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

Let  me  ask  our  religious  teachers,  in  all  earnest- 
ness, this  question:  When  God  says  over  and  over  again  in 
language  as  explicit  as  can  be  found,  that  he  will  destroy 
a  man  or  a  class  of  men,  and  you  teach  that  he  will  not 
do  this  but  will  do  something  else,  is  it  not  likely  that 
thinking  men  and  women  will  come  to  doubt  either  the 
teachings  of  the  Bible  or  your  interpretations  of  them  ? 
If,  when  God  speaks  of  the  destruction  of  the  wicked, 
the  original  means  that  it  is  their  happiness  or  well- 
being  only  that  he  refers  to,  then  let  our  version  so  read, 
and  then  your  teachings  and  God's  word  will  be  in  har- 
mony, but  if  the  original  will  not  allow  of  such  render- 
ing consistently  with  its  spirit,  then  should  not  your 
teachings  be  brought  into  line  with  its  assertions,  and  in 
this  way  harmony  between  the  two  be  established  ? 

Another  term  constantly  used  both  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment andthe  New,in'application  to  the  wicked,  is  "perish." 
This  is  a  word  of  great  significance.  A  being  or  thing  is 
destroyed^  a  force  or  influence  outside  of  itself;  it  per- 
ishes through  its  own  inherent  weakness.  Worcester 
says,  "  To  perish  expresses  more  than  to  die;  whatever 
dies  perishes  to  a  certain  extent;  every  temporal  thing 
that  has  life  must  die;  all  things  decay,  dead  bodies  per- 
ish." This  word  is  one  that  is  constantly  employed  to 
define  the  final  state  of  the  unpardoned  sinner  against 
God.  In  John  3:15  our  Lord  says:  "The  Son  of  man 
must  be  lifted  up  that  whosoever  believeth  in  him 
should  not  perish  but  have  eternal  life." 

In  John  16:  10  he  says:  "I  give  to  them  eternal 
life,  and  they  shall  never  perish."  The  clear  alternative 
presented  in  the  above-quoted  verses  is,  that  those  who 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  75 

do  not  believe  on  Jesu*,  and  to  whom  he  does  not  give 
eternal  life,  shall  perish.  What  is  it  that  shall  perish  ? 
Is  it  their  "  spiritual  life,"  so  called,  with  its  aspirations 
after  holiness,  its  faith  towards  God,  and  love  for  his 
children  for  his  sake?  with  its  outward  manifestation 
in  gentleness,  goodness,  meekness,  temperance,  patience? 
It  cannot  be  this,  for  never  having  possessed  it,  they  can- 
not have  it  perish.  Where  the  Bible  says  a  man  shall 
perish,  to  assert  that  it  means  anything  else  than  just 
what  it  says  seems  to  me  like  entering  a  labyrinth,  from 
which  there  is  no  hope  of  our  escape. 

By  accepting  the  language  of  the  Bible  to  mean 
what  it  would  mean  if  found  in  any  other  book,  all  dif- 
ficulty vanishes  at  once.  "  Eternal  life  "  means  just  that 
and  nothing  else,  and  "to  perish  "  means  just  that  and 
nothing  else. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


IMAGINE  that  the  question  has  more  than  once 
been  thought,  if  not  spoken,  What  does  the  writer  do 
with  Matt.  25:46,  where  the  explicit  declaration  of  the 
Lord  is,  "  These  shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punish- 
ment"? In  the  first  place  the  Greek -kolasis,  here  trans- 
lated punishment,  has  not  connected  with  it  the  idea  of 
the  infliction  of  positive  pain  or  suffering;  it  means  "  re- 
straint," and  the  thought  expressed  by  it  appears  to  me 
the  same  as  that  entertained  by  Job,  David,  and  Heze- 
kiah,  whose  recorded  utterances  on  the  subject  we  con- 
sidered in  chapter  5.  There  I  endeavored  to  show 
that  the  belief  of  these  men  and  of  their  times  was  that 
the  wicked  once  committed  to  sheol  were  cut  off  from  all 
activity  of  conscious  existence  and  given  over  to  silence, 
darkness  and  forgetfulness;  in  fact,  that  all  conscious 
being  ceased.  The  meaning  of  kolasis,  so  far  as  I  have 
the  ability  and  opportunity  of  ascertaining,  is  fully  in 
accord  with  this,  and  not  necessarily  associated  with  pain, 
suffering,  misery,  anguish,  despair,  and  torment.  All 
these  experiences  are  expressed  in  the  original  of  the 
New  Testament  by  other  and  entirely  different  words 
having  no  analogy  with  the  one  here  used. 

Indeed,  were  this  one  utterance  of  our  Lord  all  that  is 
said  in  the  Bible  concerning  the  future  of  the  condemned* 
(76) 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  77 

the  most  that  could  be  asserted  upon  its  authority,  re- 
garding them,  would  be  that  they  should  be  cut  off  from 
all  the  activities  of  being.  Whether  this  should  be 
effected  by  continuing  their  existence  and  prohibiting 
the  exercise  of  their  powers  by  the  controlling  will  of  the 
Creator,  or  by  his  withdrawing  from  them  his  supporting 
power,  and  permitting  them  to  perish  through  their  own 
inherent  tendencies,  no  man,  from  the  light  afforded  by 
this  single  passage,  could  definitely  affirm.  Instead, 
therefore,  of  taking  this  one  verse  as  the  sum  of  all  Bible 
truth  in  relation  to  the  subject,  and  seeking  to  make  all 
other  Scripture  conform  to  it  at  any  expense,  is  it  not 
better  and  wiser,  and  less  liable  to  result  in  error,  to  take 
these  words  as  in  themselves  indefinite,  as  they  really 
are,  and  define  them  by  the  help  of  the  many  explan- 
atory and  qualifying  teachings  of  our  Lord  himself,  and 
other  clear  and  explicit  declarations  of  the  word  of 
God  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  the  opposite  course  has  led 
to  the  mystifying  of  much  that  is  plain,  the  encumber- 
ing of  much  that  is  simple,  and  to  the  substitution  for 
the  truth  of  God  of  the  traditions  of  men,  giving  the  enemy 
an  advantage  over  us,  facilitating  his  attacks,  and  weaken- 
ing our  defenses. 

So  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  this  word  kolasis  means 
nothing  akin  to  the  signification  generally  attached  to 
it,  and  by  any  unprejudiced  mind,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  there  is  at  least  a  possibility  that  its  meaning  has 
not  been  rightly  interpreted.  Why  then  insist  that  all 
the  teachings  of  the  Bible  relating  to  the  doom  of  the 
wicked,  be  bent  and  twisted  so  as  to  conform  to  this, 
instead  of  taking  the  entire  testimony  of  God's  word, 


78  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

and  letting  this  without  any  enlargement  or  diminution 
fit  in  as  it  most  perfectly  will  with  all  that  the  Bible 
elsewhere  reveals  concerning  the  utter  consumption, 
complete  destruction,  and  final  eternal  death  of  such  as 
at  the  last  shall  be  judged  by  Him  to  whom  all  judgment 
is  committed  as  unworthy  of  eternal  life  ?  We  have  the 
same  word  kolasis  in  i  John  4:18,  where  in  the  author- 
ized version  it  is  translated  "  torment,"  because  I  sup- 
pose the  translators  of  that  day,  being  fallible  men, 
allowed  their  conception  of  the  truth  to  influence  their 
decision  in  regard  to  the  meaning  of  the  language  in 
which  the  truth  was  embodied.  The  revisers  have,  in 
the  New  Version,  rendered  the  word  in  the  two  places  by 
the  same  English  equivalent,  "  punishment,"  though  it 
seems  to  me,  as  a  plain,  unlearned  man,  that  in  this  latter 
place  the  English  word  is  very  far  from  giving  the  idea 
of  the  writer,  and  that  "  restraint  "  would  have  fully  done 
so. 

This  epistle  seems  to  have  been  written  to  assure 
believers  in  Jesus  as  the  Christ,  that  they  are  the  chil- 
dren of  God,  and  that  they  might,  because  of  this,  have 
free  access  to,  and  fellowship  with  him,  and  with  his  Son, 
Jesus  Christ  (chapters  1:3,  and  3  :  12);  and  to  impress 
upon  them  the  blessedness  and  responsibilities  growing 
out  of  this  relation.  First  among  these  blessings  is 
God's  love  for  us,  and  first  among  the  responsibilities  is 
to  manifest  our  love,  not  only  toward  him,  but  toward 
all  whom  he  loves.  The  gift  of  his  Son  is  a  demonstra- 
tion of  his  love  to  us,  and  should  so  stimulate  our  love 
and  faith  that  they  should  never  waver,  but  always  be 
sure  of  his  paternal  response  to  every  outreach  of  filial 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  79 

affection  on  our  part.  But  if  this  relation  is  to  be  what 
God  intends  it  to  be,  it  must  be  divested  of  fear  (not 
reverential  but  slavish),  because  this  imposes  restraint, 
kolasis.  We  all  know  the  effect  of  fear  in  this  direction; 
it  embarrasses,  puts  one  under  restraint;  he  cannot  act,  or 
speak,  or  even  think  as  when  free  from  its  control.  This 
feeling  of  restraint  is  the  natural  accompaniment  of  fear, 
and  to  obviate  and  overcome  it  is  that  to  which  the  line 
of  thought  penned  by  the  apostle  seems  intended  to 
lead. 

Does  not  the  postulate  of  the  apostle  that  "  perfect 
love  casteth  out  fear,"  make  it  a  necessity  to  translate 
kolasis  by  restraint,  if  the  sequence  is  logical  ?  Fear,  he 
goes  on  to  say,  hath  kolasis,  which  is  translated  punish- 
ment; but  fear  and  punishment  do  not  necessarily  stand 
related  in  the  slightest  degree.  Matt.  7  : 6,  7  tells  us 
that  the  three  disciples  on  the  mount  of  transfiguration 
were  sore  afraid.  In  Rev.  1:17,  the  beloved  disciple 
was  prostrated  at  the  sight  of  his  glorified  Lord,  and  it 
must  have  been  fear  which  was  the  dominant  emotion 
in  his  case,  for  it  was  to  this  sentiment  that  the  Lord,  who 
needs  not  to  be  told  what  is  in  the  mind  of  man,  addressed 
his  words  of  encouragement,  "  Fear  not."  In  neither  of 
these  instances,  and  there  are  other  similar  ones,  was  any 
punishment  intended  or  apprehended,  but  there  was 
naturally  very  great  embarrassment  and  restraint. 

Mark  9:6  says  that  Peter  "  wist  not  what  to  say  for 
they  were  sore  afraid,"  and  Luke  9  133  reports  Peter  as 
not  knowing  what  he  was  saying.  In  this  instance  we 
see  that  fear,  although  it  was  not  associated  with  any 
thought  of  punishment,  did  produce  very  great  restraint, 


8o  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

It  seems  as  if  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  restraint  is  the 
word  that  should  be  used  to  translate  kolasis  in  I  John 
4:  1 8,  and  if  so  there,  why  not  in  Matt.  25  146?  That 
verse  then  would  read,  "And  these  shall  go  awayintoever- 
lasting  (kolasis]  inaction,  and  the  righteous  into  everlast- 
ing (zoe,}  activity."  This  it  seems  to  me  is  the  real  sig- 
nificance of  the  language  used  by  our  Lord.  Neither 
the  nature  of  the  restraint  or  the  activity  are  there  de- 
fined, but  the  Bible  is  so  clear  and  explicit  respecting 
both  the  one  and  the  other,  that  it  would  seem  as  if  there 
need  be  no  doubt  regarding  them.  But  there  is  another 
good  reason  why  Matt.  25  -.46  should  not  be  assumed  to 
be  the  whole  sum  of  Bible  truth  regarding  the  doom  of 
the  wicked.  The  Greek  word  aionios,  translated  "  ever- 
lasting/' is  asserted  by  men  of  the  most  unquestioned 
piety  and  learning  to  have  no  reference  to  duration,  but 
only  to  the  dispensation  or  age  in  which  the  event  al- 
luded to  should  transpire,  and  it  is  claimed  by  them  that 
Matt.  25:46  should  read:  "These  shall  go  away  into 
the  punishment  of  the  world  to  come,  and  the  righteous 
into  the  life  of  the  world  to  come." 

I  do  not  pretend  to  judge  between  the  two  opinions, 
or  even  to  surmise  which  may  be  correct;  all  that  I 
contend  for  is  that,  with  a  fair  showing,  kolasis  would 
be  more  nearly  rendered  by  the  English  "restraint,"  and 
with  the  meaning  of  aionios,  to  say  the  least  in  dispute, 
there  is  no  such  unequivocal,  unmistakable  authority  to 
this  verse  as  to  warrant  us  in  claiming  that  the  entire 
Bible  shall  be  interpreted  by  its  uncertain  light.  Buteven 
admitting  that  aionios  does  mean  "  everlasting,"  and  that 
kolasis  does  mean  "  punishment,"  then  the  verse  as  it 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  81 

stands  in  our  versions  is  very  far  from  overthrowing  or 
even  conflicting  with  the  doctrine  of  the  ultimate  de- 
struction of  the  wicked.  Our  Lord  here  only  says  they 
"  shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punishment."  He  gives 
no  intimation  regarding  the  nature  of  that  punishment, 
but  2  Thess.  I  :  9  does  define  the  nature  of  it  very  clearly. 
It  says  "they  shall  be  punished  with  everlasting  destruc- 
tion." And  in  Matt.  13:40, 42,  our  Lord  himself  no  less 
clearly  defines  it,  saying  that  "  they  shall  be  burned  up." 
I  cannot  see  that  there  is  any  conflict  between  the  word  of 
our  Lord  and  the  writings  of  Paul  in  2  Thess.  I  :  9,  or  that 
the  views  of  the  writer  are  at  variance  with  either.  But 
says  one,  "At  Luke  16:23,  Jesus  Christ  certainly  says  of 
the  rich  man  that  in  hell  he  lifted  up  his  eyes,  being  in 
torments;  there  surely  can  be  no  misapprehension  in  re- 
lation to  this."  One  would  think  there  should  not  be 
any,  but  the  very  manner  in  which  the  passage  is  referred 
to,  shows  that  the  most  radical  misapprehension  does 
exist  regarding  this  very  simple  parable.  In  the  first 
place,  the  word  "hell,"  which  in  the  Greek  is  hades,  the 
equivalent  of  the  Hebrew  sJieol,  means  simply  the  un- 
seen state,  and  has  no  analogy  with  Gehenna,  translated 
"hell"  in  Mark  9  : 43, 45, 47.  Lazarus  was  as  much  in  hell 
as  the  rich  man,  but  the  one  lifted  up  his  eyes  in  torment, 
and  the  other  his  from  the  bosom  of  Abraham.  The 
effect  of  confounding  hades,  or  the  unseen  state  upon 
which  the  soul  enters  at  death,  with  Gehenna,  the  place 
of  final  punishment,  has  been  to  lead  many  to  think  this 
parable  conclusive  as  to  the  eternal  torment  of  the 
wicked,  while  all  that  can  be  learned  from  it  concerning 
their  condition  after  leaving  this  world  is,  that  between 
6 


82  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

death  and  the  Judgment  they  are  in  a  state  of  intense 
suffering.  It  gives  no  intimation  regarding  the  effect 
upon  them  of  the  lake  of  fire,  when  at  the  final  award 
they  shall  be  consigned  to  its  abyss. 

But  ii  hades  proved  a  place  of  misery  for  the  rich  man, 
it  was  one  of  unspeakable  rest  and  comfort  and  bliss  to 
Lazarus,  and  in  this  direction  there  is  not  so  much  ten- 
dency to  misapprehension;  and  the  consolation  derived 
from  the  record  of  his  experience  has  helped  to  bear 
many  a  burden,  dried  many  a  tear,  and  comforted  many 
a  bereaved  and  sorrowing  heart. 

"Yes,  the  delightful" day  will  come, 
When  my  dear  Lord  will  call  me  home, 
And  I  shall  see  his  face," 

Is  the  sustaining  refrain  of  many  a  weary  sojourner,  in 
this,  the  house  of  his  pilgrimage.  It  is  to  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  Greek  basanos,  rendered  ''torment"  (Luke 
1 6  123),  has  not  the  slightestanalogy  with  kolasis, rendered 
"torment"  (i  John  4:  18),  which  claimed  our  attention 
a  few  pages  back.  If  you  ask  me  how  I  explain  Rev. 
14:11,1  frankly  answer  that  I  make  no  attempt  at  ex- 
planation. To  myself  I  say,  this  is  a  single  sentence  in  a 
book  filled  with  the  sublimest  imagery  portrayed  in  the 
most  highly  figurative  language,  the  interpretation  of 
which  has  caused  the  widest  divergence  on  the  part  of  the 
many  writers  who  have  attempted  to  unfold  its  meaning. 
Under  such  circumstances  it  does  not  seem  as  if  this 
one  verse  should  make  even  a  ripple  on  the  current  of 
God's  truth,  as  it  is  gathered  in  a  mighty  stream  from 
every  portion  of  his  holy  word.  It  should  also  be  noted 
that  this  verse  refers  in  any  case  only  to  a  single  class 
of  the  wicked,  and  not  to  universal  humanity. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


;N  chapter  2,  commenting  upon  the  eighteenth  chapter 
of  Ezekiel,  I  had  occasion  to  say  that  when  God 
threatened  the  sinner  with  death,  there  was  no  force  in 
the  threat  unless  death  meant  the  cessation  of  life.  The 
same  holds  true  with  reference  to  the  following  texts,  and 
all  others  of  a  like  import.  In  John  8  :  24  our  Lord 
tells  his  hearers  that  "  they  shall  die  in  their  sins;"  and  in 
Rom.  8:13  Paul  writes,  "  If  ye  live  after  the  flesh  ye 
shall  die''  In  neither  of  these  places  can  so-called 
"spiritual  death"  be  meant,  for  this  was  the  very  condi- 
tion which  those  addressed  were  then  in,  and  for  being 
in  which  they  were  to  die.  In  John,  our  Lord  tells  his 
hearers  that  in  rejecting  him  they  lost  their  only  chances 
of  escape  from  the  penalty  denounced  against  sin,  viz., 
death;  and  in  Romans,  Paul  says  that  natural,  psychical 
life  aside  from  the  life  imparted  in  the  begetting  from 
above,  had  no  continuance,  but  must  come  to  an  end. 

With  our  definition  of  "  life  "  and  "  death  "  all  these 
passages  and  such  as  these  are  plain,  and,  so  far  as  I 
know,  so  is  every  other  in  the  entire  Bible  relating  to 
the  subject,  except  that  one  in  Rev.  14:  u.  With  any 
other  definition  not  only  are  they  not  plain,  but,  as  it  ap- 
pears to  me,  they  cannot  be  made  so.  But  I  am  some- 

(83) 


84  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

times  asked,  ''  Will  not  the  adoption  of  such  views  as 
you  advocate  destroy  the  belief  of  men  in  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul,  and  lead  to  evil  ?"  As  to  the  immortal- 
ity of  the  soul,  it  will  be  overthrown  only  so  far  as  it 
conflicts  with  the  teachings  of  the  Bible,  and  to  this  ex- 
tent this,  and  every  other  doctrine,  deserves  overthrow. 
The  Bible  nowhere  says  that  the  soul  is  immortal,  but 
everywhere,  from  first  to  last,  asserts  over  and  over,  both 
directly  and  by  implication,  the  contrary.  When,  at  the 
first,  man  was  put  upon  probation,  he  was  assured  by 
God  that  if  he  transgressed  he  should  surely  die.  This 
very  threat  asserts  his  mortality.  How  can  death  be 
visited  upon  an  immortal  being?  The  very  term  immortal 
signifies  not  mortal,  not  subject  to  death.  It  becomes 
us  with  all  reverence  to  say  it,  but  even  the  Almighty 
One  cannot  visit  death  upon  an  immortal  being.  Every 
verse  that  asserts  the  destruction  and  death  of  the 
wicked,  is  an  assertion  of  man's  mortality. 

Ps.  66  :  9  says,  "  O,  bless  our  God  .  .  .  which 
holdeth  our  soul  in  life."  If  the  soul  is  deathless  by  its 
constitution,  can  it  with  any  propriety  be  said  to  be  held 
in  life  by  a  power  outside  of  itself?  The  admission 
that  it  needed  such  extraneous  support  for  the  continu- 
ance of  its  life,  implies  that  if  from  any  cause  that  sup- 
port should  be  withheld,  it  would  die.  Ps.  103  : 4  is  an- 
other instance  of  a  similar  character:  "  Who  redeemcth 
thy  life  from  destruction."  In  this  psalm  David  clearly 
recognizes  the  two-fold  nature  of  man, — the  material, 
physical  organization,  and  the  nobler,  immaterial  part, 
the  soul.  He  addresses  his  soul  as  if  it  were  a  being 
independent  of  himself,and  calls  upon  it  torencleruntothe 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  85 

Lord  the  homage  and  praise  his  great  name  and  many 
mercies  deserved.  It  is  the  iniquity  of  his  soul,  not  his 
iniquity,  that  is  forgiven.  The  life  of  his  soul,  not  his 
life,  that  is  redeemed  from  destruction.  It  is  not  ma- 
terial good  and  physical  life  that  engage  his  thoughts, 
but  the  exceeding  mercy  of  God  towards  his  sinful  soul, 
sick  beyond  the  help  of  any  human  remedies,  exposed 
to  destruction  which  no  human  power  could  avert.  That 
this  is  so  appears  from  the  contrast  he  draws  between 
this  mortal  life,  verses  14  and  16,  and  the  everlasting 
mercy  of  God  towards  those  who  keep  his  covenant, 
verses  17  and  18.  If  David  inherited  from  Adam  a 
soul  whose  life  was  indestructible,  where  was  the  need 
for  any  one  to  interpose  to  redeem  it  from  that  to  which 
from  its  nature  it  could  not  be  exposed  ?  I  cannot  find 
any  intimation  that  David  thought  his  soul  exposed  to 
endless  suffering,  or  he  would  have  said,  "  Who  redeem- 
€th  thee  from  eternal  misery,"  if  he  was  seeking  to  ex- 
press what  was  really  in  his  mind.  He  evidently  con- 
sidered the  life  of  his  soul  exposed  to  destruction;  not 
its  happiness  nor  the  beauty  or  innocence  of  its  life,  but 
the  very  life  itself.  And  this  comes  out  more  fully 
when  we  consider  the  latter  clause  of  the  fourth  verse 
in  connection  with  the  fifth,  "  Who  crowneth  thee,"  i.  e., 
his  soul,  "with  loving  kindness  and  tender  mercies,  who 
satisfieth  thy  mouth  with  good  things."  These  varied 
blessings  which  he  enumerates  as  cause  for  praise,  it  should 
be  observed,  are  not  merged  in  the  life  of  the  soul  as  if 
they  formed  a  part  of  it.  The  life  of  the  soul  redeemed 
from  destruction  is  one  thing  by  itself;  these  favors 
from  God  by  which  its  life  is  blessed  and  made  beatific 


86  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

are  distinct  from  the  life,  and  call  for  special  mention 
and  separate  acknowledgment  and  gratitude.  In  I 
Tim.  6  :  16  Paul  says  of  the  King  of  kings  that  "  He 
only  hath  immortality,"  and  in  I  Cor.  15:53,  "This 
mortal  must  put  on  immortality,"  and  in  the  next  verse, 
"  when  this  mortal  shall  have  put  on  immortality."  If 
man  by  virtue  of  his  original  creation  is  immortal,  how 
is  he  by  and  by  to  put  on  that  which  inheres  in  the  con- 
stitution of  his  being  and  which  has  always  attached  to 
him  ?  But  Paul  does  not  leave  this  matter  of  man's 
entire  mortality  to  be  merely  inferred,  but  asserts  it 
plainly  in  saying,  "  This  mortal  must  put  on  immortal- 
ity." 

Is  it  said  that  he  is  speaking  of  man's  material 
part,  which  every  one  admits  to  be  mortal  ?  I  answer, 
There  is  no  evidence  of  this,  but  very  much  to  the  con- 
trary. In  the  forty-second  verse  he  says,  speaking  of 
the  bodies  of  the  dead,  "They  are  sown  in  corruption r 
they  are  raised  in  incorruption."  But  besides  the  con- 
ferring of  incorruption  upon  their  corruptible  bodies, 
there  is  the  bestowal  of  immortality  upon  something 
which,  up  to  this  time,  had  been  mortal.  What  is  this 
something  ?  Is  it  the  body  ?  No,  he  has  done  for  that 
all  he  purposes  and  all  it  needs,  when  it  is  raised  from 
the  dead  incorruptible,  a  spiritual  body.  If  not  the 
body,  what  can  it  be  but  the  soul  ?  The  soul,  which,  by 
reason  of  sin,  had  come  under  sentence  of  death?  Un- 
less it  is  the  soul  that  is  referred  to  as  mortal,  it  has  no 
part  in  this  event  so  inspiriting  to  the  apostle,  for  unless- 
alluded  to  as  "  this  mortal,"  it  is  not  alluded  to  at  all. 
Twice  Paul  uses  the  same  formula,  once  in  the  fifty-third 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  87 

and  again  in  the  fifty-fourth  verse,  preserving  in  both 
instances  the  relative  contrast  between  the  corruptible 
and  the  incorruptible,  the  mortal  and  the  immortal,  and 
unless  the  redemption  of  the  soul  as  well  as  the  body 
was  included  in  his  anticipations,  the  exultant  shout  of 
triumph  with  which  he  closes  the  consideration  of  the 
subject  seems  scarcely  justified,  I  do  not  see  how  we 
can  escape  the  conclusion  that  Paul  here  refers  to  the 
soul  as  mortal,  just  as  plainly  as  he  does  to  the  body  as 
corruptible. 

I  do  not  feel  called  upon  to  meet  any  arguments 
for  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  based  upon  human 
reasoning  and  universal  instinct,  as  all  speculations  and 
theories  of  men  are  without  the  scope  of  this  undertak- 
ing, which  is  simply  by  comparing  scripture  with  script- 
ure, as  any  man  may  do,  to  ascertain  what  the  Bible 
teaches  concerning  these  great  problems  affecting  our 
highest  interests.  I  will,  however,  a  little  further  on  try 
to  allay  the  fears  of  those  who  think  that  the  general 
adoption  of  such  views  would  be  to  throw  down  all 
barriers  between  wicked  men  and  the  gratification  of 
their  sinful  propensities.  At  present  I  wish  to  ask  if 
there  is  anything  in  the  Bible  that  conflicts  with  the 
idea  of  the  complete  and  final  destruction  of  the  wicked, 
when,  at  the  consummation  of  the  age,  God  shall  have 
accomplished  all  his  purposes  connected  with  the  pres- 
ence of  evil  in  the  world,  I  do  not  think  that  any 
unbiased  search  can  discover  such  conflicting  teachings; 
on  the  contrary,  all  that  the  Bible  tells  us  upon  the  sub- 
ject harmonizes  with  the  doctrine. 

Man  is  a  creature  of  God.     •'  It  is  he  who  has  made 


88  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

us,  and  not  we  who  have  made  ourselves."  Man  pos- 
sesses absolutely  nothing  of  his  own  (Dan.  5  :  23):  "  The 
God  in  whose  hand  thy  breath  is  and  whose  are  all  thy 
ways."  Job  12  :  10,  "In  whose  hand  is  the  life  of  every- 
thing, and  the  breath  of  all  mankind."  Acts  17:25, 
"  Seeing  he  giveth  to  all  life,  and  breath,  and  all  things." 
Man,  then,  created  by  God,  was  without  any  inherent 
power  to  continue  the  existence  so  conferred,  and  the 
above  quotations  teach  that  the  same  Power  that  cre- 
ated must  be  relied  on  to  sustain.  I  do  not  say  that 
God  may  not  create  beings  self-sustained  and  independ- 
ent of  his  volition  for  their  continued  existence;  but,  as 
regards  our  race,  the  Bible,  as  I  read  it,  asserts  that  it 
was  not  so  created.  What,  then,  is  the  immortality  or 
deathless  nature  claimed  by  so  many  as  attaching  to  the 
soul  of  man  ?  So  far  as  I  understand,  it  resolves  itself 
into  this:  The  soul  is  immortal,  i.  e.,  it  cannot  die  un- 
less he  whose  creative  power  at  the  first  caused  it  to  be, 
and  whose  preserving  power  alone  continues  it  in  being, 
withdraws  his  sustaining  hand,  when,  from  its  original 
constitution,  it  ceases  to  be.  If  any  claim  more  than 
this  for  the  soul  of  man,  it  is  incumbent  upon  them  to 
bring  some  strong  assurance  from  the  word  of  God  to 
warrant  the  setting  aside  all  the  plain  and  oft-repeated 
assertions  of  the  Bible  to  the  effect  that  the  soul  is  sub- 
ject to  death,  to  everlasting  destruction,  and  shall,  under 
certain  named  conditions,  perish,  be  consumed,  and  ut- 
terly destroyed. 

The  most  constantly  used  of  all  sensible  things  to 
symbolize  this  destruction  is  fire,  which,  invariably,  when 
applied  in  its  intensest  form  to  material  objects,  dissi- 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 


pates  into  nothingness  whatever  is  subjected  to  its  ac- 
tion. In  Matt.  10  :  28  our  Lord  says,  "Fear  not  them 
which  kill  the  body  but  are  not  able  to  kill  the  soul;  but 
rather  fear  him  who  ;s  able  to  destroy  both  soul  and 
body  in  Gehenna,  and  the  parallel  passage,  Luke  12:5, 
says,  "  Fear  him  who  after  he  hath  killed  hath  power  to 
cast  into  Gehenna''  (Rev.  9  :  5  shows  that  to  kill  is  not 
to  torment.)  It  is  asserted  by  our  Lord  that  he  who 
made  the  soul  is  able  to  destroy  it,  and  this  he  effects  by 
giving  it  over  to  the  fires  of  the  final  Judgment.  It 
seems  to  me  that  an  unprejudiced  interpretation  of  the 
above  verses,  independent  of  any  preconceived  opinion 
of  what  they  should  mean,  will  warrant  only  the  fore- 
going views.  We  see,  then,  that  the  soul  of  man  equally 
with  the  body  is,  according  to  the  Bible,  continued  in  be- 
ing only  at  the  will  and  by  the  power  of  God;  that  he 
has  the  power  to  destroy  it,  and  that  he  will  in  some 
specified  cases  exert  that  power.  What,  then,  becomes  of 
the  claim  made  for  the  immortality  or  deathlessness  of 
the  soul  ? 


CHAPTER    IX. 


. 

HE  man  who  with  no  ulterior  intentions  for  good  tears 

downthat  whichservesauseful  purposeeither  in  phys- 
ics, intellect,  or  morals,  is  a  public  enemy;  but  he  who 
destroys  that  he  may  reconstruct  to  better  ends,  deserves 
the  approval  of  his  kind.  Convinced  as  I  am  upon  the 
word  of  God  that  the  soul  of  man  is  mortal,  I  would 
not  say  a  word  to  disturb  the  belief  of  those  who  find 
comfort  and  strength  and  gladness  in  believing  the  con- 
trary, unless  I  felt  sure  of  being  able  to  offer  them  some- 
thing better  than  that  which  is  taken  away.  I  am  no 
theologian,  but  if  the  foregoing  pages  contain  the  truth 
as  God  has  revealed  it,  and  wishes  us  to  understand  ity 
there  must  be  entire  harmony  between  these  views  and 
all  else  that  is  revealed  in  connection  with  the  subject 
considered.  God  is  one,  and  in  all  his  plans  and  pur- 
poses there  must  be  unity  of  design  and  operation;  and 
whatever  claims  to  be  a  revelation  of  these  plans  must 
be  in  harmony  with  itself  and  susceptible  of  an  intelli- 
gent unfolding  to  the  extent  of  the  revelation  intended. 
Is  there  then  any  conflict  between  the  views  herein  ad- 
vocated, and  any  revelation  which  God  has  made  either 
in  his  word  or  works  ?  Is  there  not  on  the  contrary  the 
most  perfect  accord  such  as  does  not  exist  between 
revelation  and  any  other  doctrine  concerning  the 
(90) 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  91 

future  ?  Those  who  assert  that  there  is  no  hereafter,  but 
that  to  all,  irrespective  of  their  attitude  toward  God, 
physical  dissolution  is  the  end  of  being,  come  into  direct 
antagonism  to  the  Bible.  Nor  less  in  opposition  to  its 
teachings  are  such  as  claim  that  for  all,  whether  good  or 
bad,  there  is  beyond  the  grave  an  eternity  of  bliss.  And 
they  who  stand  by  the  evangelical  doctrine  of  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul  and  the  endless  misery  of  the 
wicked,  certainly  must  find  that  it  requires  a  good  deal 
of  shaping  and  trimming  to  make  their  doctrine  fit  in 
with  the  other  utterances  of  God's  word.  The  essential 
oneness  of  God  seems  to  make  our  interpretation  of  the 
language  of  the  Bible  regarding  the  final  doom  of  the 
wicked,  a  necessity. 

In  Deut.  6 : 4  Moses  calls  the  attention  of  the 
chosen  people  to  the  fact  that  their  God,  Jehovah,  was 
one.  The  gods  of  the  nations  about  them  were  many. 
One  of  them  was  the  god  of  the  hills,  another  of  the 
plains;  one  was  god  of  the  air,  one  of  the  sea,  one  of  war, 
one  of  justice,  and  so  on  through  all  the  economies  of 
the  material  universe,  and  all  the  attributes  of  moral 
character.  But  the  God  of  Israel  was  not  to  be  thought 
of  in  any  such  way.  He  held  in  his  hand  all  the  forces 
of  nature;  and  in  an  unific  condition,  and  in  an  infinite 
degree,  was  possessed  of  every  moral  attribute.  "  Hear,  O 
Israel  !  Jehovah  our  God  is  one,  Jehovah."  This 
punctuation  seems  necessary  from  the  connection,  and 
in  its  quotation  by  our  Lord  in  Mark  12  :  30,  as  given  in 
the  revision,  its  correctness  is  certainly  made  probable 
if  it  is  not  fully  established.  This  quality  in  the  char- 
acter of  God  insures  unity  of  design  and  action  in  the 


92  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

realms  of  nature  and  providence,  and  equally  so  in  his 
moral  government,  and  forbids  our  thinking  or  speaking 
of  his  attributes  as  we  think  and  speak  of  the  qualities 
possessed  by  our  fellow-men.  We  say  of  a  man  he  is 
honest,  but  niggardly;  of  another,  he  is  just,  but  doesn't 
know  what  mercy  means;  of  a  third,  he  is  affectionate, 
but  stern.  But  with  God  it  is  not  so.  In  the  glorious 
perfections  of  his  infinitude,  every  attribute  of  his  moral 
nature  must  be  exercised  equally  with  every  other  in 
each  act  relating  to  his  moral  government.  We  cannot 
say  of  him  he  is  just  in  this  act,  and  righteous  in  this, 
and  merciful  in  this,  and  faithful  in  this;  but  his  justice, 
mercy,  righteousness,  and  truth  all  unite  in  every  order- 
ing of  his  holy  will.  If  this  be  so  (and  in  the  nature  of 
the  case  can  it  be  otherwise  ?)  where  can  be  seen  the  exhi- 
bition of  God's  love  and  mercy  to  the  condemned  sinner, 
in  prolonging  his  existence  which  is  hopelessly  miserable 
because  irreclaimably  sinful  ? 

In  view  of  such  an  award,  it  may  be  that  the  assem- 
bled universe  should  unite  in  saying:  "Even  so,  Lord 
God  Almighty,  true  and  righteous  are  thy  judgments;" 
but  could  they  find  any  place  for  his  loving  kindness 
and  tender  mercies?  If  on  the  other  hand,  when  he  has 
accomplished  all  his  purposes  in  permitting  the  intro- 
duction of  sin  into  his  moral  government,  and  allowed  it 
to  work  out  to  demonstration  its  own  inherent  tendencies, 
culminating  in  complete  ruin  and  misery,  and  made  this 
manifest  to  the  universe,  he  deprives  the  guilty  ones  of 
the  being  which  they  had  employed  so  far  as  they  were 
able  to  frustrate  his  plans  and  subvert  his  authority;  he 
is  no  more  just  than  merciful,  no  more  severe  than  com- 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 


passionate,  no  more  holy  than  loving.  God  makes  no- 
partial  exhibition  of  his  perfection  in  depriving  the  sin- 
ful soul  of  that  which  if  prolonged  would  be  only  a  con- 
tinued rebellion  against  himself,  and  consequent  con- 
tinued misery,  thus  extirpating  the  sin  while  minimizing 
the  loss  to  the  sinner.  Does  any  other  disposition  of  the 
finally  condemned  disclose  God  so  in  harmony  with  all 
that  he  has  revealed  of  himself  in  the  Bible?  As  this 
doctrine  manifests  the  unity  of  God  in  the  final  punish- 
ment for  transgression,  it  makes  it  no  less  apparent  in 
the  precaution  taken  to  lessen,  as  far  as  possible,  the 
evils  of  the  first  transgression.  From  this  point  of  ob- 
servation the  cherubim  and  flaming  sword  guarding  the 
way  to  the  tree  of  life,  are  no  longer  an  enigma.  Man 
was  now  a  transgressor;  a  sense  of  guilt  was  upon  him; 
the  faith  which  had  turned  lovingly  to  God  and  rested 
implicitly  in  him  had  been  supplanted  by  unbelief;  fear 
had  taken  the  place  of  love,  the  penalty  affixed  to  dis- 
obedience had  been  incurred,  and  all  the  perfections  of 
God,  his  wisdom,  justice,  truth  and  power  which  before 
had  been  pledged  for  the  preservation  and  well-being  of 
man  now  only  made  more  certain  the  execution  of  the 
sentence  pronounced  against  sin. 

Adam  heard  the  voice  of  God  and  hid  himself.  To 
bestow  eternal  life  on  such  a  one  would  be  in  opposition 
to  all  that  God  has  revealed  concerning  himself.  "God 
is  love/'  and  no  creature  by  any  act  he  can  perform  is 
capable  of  changing,  in  the  least  degree,  the  perfection 
of  his  character.  The  truth,  holiness,  and  justice  of 
God  were  to  be  manifested  in  the  infliction  of  the  threat- 
ened penalty,  but  no  less  his  love.  The  tree  of  life  is 


94  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

not  plucked  up,  nor  cut  down,  only  the  way  to  it  is 
guarded.  Man  may  yet  gather  of  its  fruit,  and  eat,  and 
live  forever;  but  first  there  must  be  sorrow  and  repent- 
ance for  sin;  perfect  love  must  cast  out  fear,  and  unwav- 
ering faith  be  ready  to  respond  to  the  faintest  call  of 
God  "  my  Father."  The  assurance  of  God's  word  is, 
that  "without  faith  it  is  impossible  to  please  him;"  and 
just  as  plainly,  though  not  so  succinctly,  that  without 
it  the  complete  and  permanent  well  being  of  the  creat- 
ure is  also  impossible.  From  the  highest  archangel 
before  the  throne,  to  the  weakest  moral  nature  in  the 
universe,  faith  in  God  must  be  implicit,  or  there  can  be 
no  safety  against  temptation,  no  security  for  continued 
innocence,  no  equanimity  to  rest  upon  when  the  opera- 
tions of  the  All-Wise  and  Eternal,  who  giveth  not  ac- 
count of  any  of  his  matters,  outreach  the  stretch  of  the 
finite  intellect,  and  all  that  can  be  known  of  his  ways  is 
mysterious  and  perplexed.  So,  though  to  the  natural 
man  it  may  appear  an  arbitrary  requirement  on  the  part 
of  God,  when  he  makes  faith  in  him  the  ground  of  jus- 
tification, and  the  condition  of  eternal  life;  such  is  not 
the  case,  but  the  possession  and  exercise  of  this  grace  is 
no  more  for  the  honor  of  the  Creator  than  for  the  bless- 
ing of  the  creature.  As  I  read  the  Bible,  the  whole  rec- 
ord of  God's  dealings  with  the  race  shows  this  one  pur- 
pose, to  re-establish  in  the  nature  of  man  that  faith 
which  had  been  lost,  and  without  which  his  claims  upon 
man  never  could  be  met,  nor  his  love  be  satisfied  in  the 
possession  by  man  of  complete  felicity  beyond  the  pos- 
sibility of  forfeiture.  The  means  employed  by  God  to 
effect  this  restoration  have  been  varied,  but  the  end  in 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  95 

view  has  been  the  same.  I  know  that  the  churches 
teach  that  the  faith  of  Old  Testament  believers  was  in  a 
Saviour  to  come,  and  that  it  rested  upon  Jesus  Christ  by 
anticipation,  as  ours  does  on  him  as  a  Saviour  revealed. 
I  think  this  is  not  only  contrary  to  the  Bible,  but  to 
sound  policy  as  well.  We  make  an  advance  into  the 
enemies'  country  and  take  up  a  position  which  we  can- 
not hold  and  from  which  any  well  ordered  attack  forces 
us  to  retreat. 

In  all  the  enumeration  of  Old  Testament  believers 
in  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Hebrews,  not  one  of 
them  is  named  as  having  any  reference  to  a  crucified, 
risen  Saviour  as  the  object  of  his  faith.*  In  all  these  in- 
stances the  object  of  faith  was  God.  The  faith  of 
Abram,  which  was  counted  to  him  for  righteousness,  was 
in  the  promise  of  God  concerning  a  progeny  which  to 
men  appeared  impossible  of  fulfillment.  Gen.  15:56; 

*The  case  of  Moses  in  the  twenty-sixth  verse  appears  to  be  an  excep- 
tion, but  I  think  it  is  only  in  appearance,  not  in  reality.  The  twenty-fifth 
and  twenty-sixth  verses  read:  "  Choosing  rather  to  suffer  affliction  with  the 
people  of  God,  than  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  sin  fora  season;  esteeming  the 
reproach  of  Christ  greater  riches  than  the  treasures  in  Egypt."  Christ,  in 
Greek,  means  "anointed,"  and  in  I  Samuel  God  speaks  of  the  chosen  people 
as  his  anointed,  and  in  I  Chron.  16:22,  speaking  of  the  providence  of  God 
over  his  people,  David  says,  "  He  reproved  kings  for  their  sakes,  saying, 
Touch  not  mine  anointed."  Again,  in  Hab.  3:13,  the  prophet  says:  "Thou 
wentest  forth  for  the  salvation  of  thy  people,  even  for  salvation  with  thine 
anointed."  Itmaybe  because  of  my  ignorance  of  the  language,  but  it  appears 
to  me  that  there  is  no  impropriety  in  translating  "jpZO'TO?"  anointed, 
especially  as  the  context  seems  to  require  it.  The  preceding  verse  says 
he  chose  to  suffer  affliction  with  the  people  of  God,  and  goes  on  to  say  that 
the  motive  for  this  was  to  be  found  in  his  esteeming  reproach  with  this 
anointed  people  superior  to  all  earthly  good. 


96  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

Rom.  4:3,  20,  22.  As  regards  Enoch,  the  writer  appears 
to  have  had  no  specific  act  of  faith  in  his  mind,  but  as- 
sumes that  he  exercised  and  made  manifest  this  grace, 
from  the  recorded  fact  that  he  pleased  God  (Gen.  5:24), 
and  as  this  was  impossible  without  faith,  it  must  have 
been  possessed  by  Enoch.  So  of  Noah.  He  became 
heir  of  the  righteousness  which  is  by  faith,  through 
his  implicit  faith  in  God  specifically  shown  in 
building  the  ark.  So  of  Gideon  (Judges  6:i  I,  40).  All 
this  condescension  on  the  part  of  God,  that  the  faith  of 
Gideon  might  be  strengthened  and  perfected,  had  no 
reference  to  Jesus  Christ,  but  only  to  God  himself, 
whether  Gideon  could  or  would  confide  unhesitatingly 
in  his  wisdom  to  plan,  in  his  faithfulness  to  his  word, 
and  in  his  power  to  accomplish  his  purposes.  It  seems 
clear  that  God  alone  was  the  object  of  faith  to  Abram, 
Enoch,  Moses,  Gideon,  and  the  others  referred  to  in  this 
eleventh  chapter  of  Hebrews;  and  in  Rom.  4:24  it  is 
said  that  he  must  be  the  object  of  our  faith.  "  Now,  it 
was  net  written  for  his  sake  alone  that  it  was  imputed 
to  him,  but  for  us  also  to  whom  it  shall  be  imputed,  if 
we  believe  on  him  that  raised  up  Jesus,  our  Lord,  from  the 
dead!'  Also  in  I  Peter  1 :2O,  2 1  the  apostle  says,  speak- 
ing of  our  Lord,  "  but  was  manifest  in  these  last  times 
for  you,  who  by  him  do  believe  in  God,  that  raised  him 
from  the  dead." 

The  acceptance  of,  and  belief  in  Jesus  Christ,  in 
his  nature  as  divine  as  well  as  human;  in  his  office  as 
redeemer,  and  in  his  teachings  as  truth,  is  the  corner- 
stone upon  which  Christians  build  their  structure  of 
faith  in  God,  without  which  it  is  impossible  to  please 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  97 

him.  On  his  divine  side  belief  in  Jesus  Christ  is  faith  in 
God,  but  on  his  human  side,  as  the  man  Christ  Jesus, 
belief  in  him  is  the  ladder  by  which  we  ascend  to  faith 
in  God.  With  this  view  it  is  not  necessary  for  us,  in 
order  to  show  that  God's  plan  of  salvation  has  been  the 
same  in  all  ages  (viz.  by  faith),  to  prove  that  Noah, 
Abram,  and  others  of  the  Old  Testament  dispensation, 
had  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  but  only  that  they  had  faith 
in  God,  induced,  sustained,  and  strengthened  by  such 
means  as  he  saw  best  suited  to  this  end. 

It  seems  presumption  to  say  that  God  is  restricted 
to  only  one  medium  in  awakening  and  developing  faith, 
and  that,  the  acceptance  of  Jesus  Christ;  for  the  holy 
angels  exercise  faith  in  God,  and  have  done  so  ever 
since  their  creation,  and  from  I  Peter  i:ii,  12,  they 
knew  nothing  clearly  of  the  character  the  Son  of  God 
was  to  assume  as  a  suffering,  dying  Saviour.  Neither 
do  the  words  of  our  Lord  in  John  8:56,  "Abraham  re- 
joiced to  see  my  day,"  etc.,  imply  that  his  faith  realized 
an  incarnate,  suffering,  dying,  risen  God,  for  I  Peter 
1:10,  12  says  expressly  that  even  the  prophets,  who  fore- 
told this  of  our  Lord,  did  not  understand  the  import  of 
their  prediction,  but  it  was  revealed  to  them  that  their 
ministry  in  this  respect  was  not  for  themselves  but  for 
those  of  a  later  generation.  Nor  does  this  conflict  with 
Acts  4:12:  "  For  there  is  none  other  name  under  heaven 
given  among  men  whereby  we  must  be  saved." 

It  was  to  the  people  of  Israel  that  this  language 
was  addressed.  Acts  3:12.  "To  those  who  had  partici- 
pated in  the  death  of  Jesus  (verses  14,  15),  to  the  chil- 
dren of  the  covenant  made  by  God  with  Abraham 
7 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 


(verse  25),  and  especially  to  the  members  of  the  Sanhe- 
drim, who  had  personally  and  actively  engaged  'in  his 
crucifixion.  Acts  4  :  8.  To  these  and  all  such  as  these, 
who  have  had  Jesus  preached  unto  them  ineffectually 
there  are  no  other  means  that  can  avail;  but  to  those 
who  never  have  heard  of  the  gospel  of  God's  grace 
through  him,  God  may,  and  I  think  the  Bible  teaches 
that  he  does,  impart  such  and  so  much  knowledge  of 
himself  as  suffices  for  the  springing  up  and  keeping 
alive  that  faith  which  he  requires.  That  God  was  the 
object  of  faith  to  Old  Testament  believers  is  also  evi- 
dent from  psalm  78.  The  psalmist  recites  the  wonder- 
ful and  repeated  interpositions  on  the  part  of  God  for 
his  people,  and  verse  21  says:  The  Lord  was  wroth;  "  and 
anger  came  up  against  Israel  because  they  believed  not 
in  God."  But  it  is  needless  to  multiply  proofs  of  the 
position  that  belief  in  Jesus  Christ  was  not  required, 
nor  possible  under  the  Mosaic  dispensation.  How  could 
they  believe  in  him  of  whom  they  had  not  heard  ? 

As  said  before,  it  is  impolitic  as  well  as  unscript- 
ural  to  claim  that  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  was  the  ground 
of  justification  for  Old  Testament  believers.  The 
passages  quoted,  I  think,  show  that  it  is  unscript- 
ural;  if  not,  many  others  might  be  added;  and  it  is  im- 
politic, because  it  puts  us  upon  the  defensive  when  the 
position  is  attacked  by  unbelievers.  The  taking  upon 
himself  by  the  Second  Person  in  the  Godhead,  of  the 
office  of  man's  Redeemer,  and  of  satisfying  the  require- 
ments of  the  broken  law,  by  himself  bearing  the  pen- 
alty, made  it  possible  for  God,  consistently  with  his 
justice,  to  bestow  eternal  life  upon  any  of  the  race  whom 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  99 

he,  in  his  omniscience,  saw  were  fitted  to  receive  it.  No 
truth  is  more  plainly  taught  in  the  Bible  than  that 
eternal  life  is  a  free  gift  from  God,  wholly  irrespective  of 
any  merit  on  the  part  of  the  recipient.  Faith  in  God  is 
the  only  condition,  and  this  not  that  man  may  make  a 
return  to  God  for  the  gift,  but  that  he  may  stand  in 
such  a  relation  toward  God  that  his  infinite  love  and 
wisdom  may  be  satisfied  that  the  gift  shall  prove  a 
blessing  and  not  a  curse.  (His  justice  has  already  been 
satisfied  by  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus  Christ.)  If  there  is 
in  any  soul  that  faith  in  God  which,  of  his  free  grace,  he 
reckons  for  righteousness,  and  which  he  in  his  omnis- 
cience sees  will  make  eternal  life  a  blessing,  even  though 
it  reach  out  toward  him  in  darkness  and  ignorance  and 
weakness,  who  is  to  limit  his  grace  and  prescribe  for 
him  the  measure  of  that  faith,  the  possession  of  which 
shall  permit  him,  in  accordance  with  his  own  infinite 
perfections,  and  the  greatest  good  of  the  individual,  to 
bestow  upon  the  possessor  eternal  life  ? 

That  Jesus  Christ,  by  his  own  death,  has  redeemed 
the  entire  race  from  the  penalty  of  the  broken  law,  which 
is  death,  and  purchased  eternal  life  for  all,  is  seen  from 
the  following  passages:  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God 
which  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world"  (John  I  :  29); 
"  And  he  is  the  propitiation  .  .  .  for  the  sins  of  the 
whole  world"  (i  John  2:2);  "  The  Father  sent  the  Son 
to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world"  (i  John  4:  14).  This  be- 
ing the  case,  we  may  be  sure  that  Jesus  Christ  will  never 
let  one  soul,  for  whose  redemption  he  has  paid  the  pur- 
chase price  in  full,  go  down  to  eternal  death,  if  the  re- 
lation of  that  soul  toward  God  is  such  as  to  make  eternal 


ioo  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

life  a  blessing.  All  that  our  blessed  Lord  has  revealed  of 
himself  forbids  the  idea,  and  he  it  is  who  is  to  decideatlast 
who  is  fit  and  who  unfit  to  receive  the  gift;  for  John  5  : 
22  says:  "  The  Father  judgeth  no  man,  but  has  com- 
mitted all  judgment  unto  the  Son."  Understanding 
"  eternal  life  "  to  be  as  defined  in  these  pages,  the  above 
view  is  entirely  scriptural,  the  limits  wherein  the  grace  of 
God  may  be  exercised  is  exceedingly  broadened,  and 
the  mouths  of  cavilers  completely  stopped ,  who 
deny  the  Bible  to  be  a  revelation  from  God  because,  as 
they  say,  it  represents  him  as  creating  a  race  of  which 
he  knew  a  large  majority  would  be  eternally  miserable; 
for,  on  the  contrary,  he  does  not  permit  a  single  one  to 
be  so,  but  ends  their  rebellion,  their  misery,  and  their 
being,  just  as  soon  as  his  all-wise  purposes  in  allowing  sin 
to  come  into  the  world,  are  accomplished.  Not  only  does 
God  not  create  men  to  make  them  eternally  miserable,  but 
he  gives  to  all  so  much  knowledge  of  himself,  either 
through  his  word,  his  works,  or  the  promptings  of  his 
Spirit,  as  that  they  may  manifest  their  tendencies  and 
reach  out  after  him  in  faith,  even  though  it  be  but  blindly, 
(as  in  Acts  17  :  27),  if  they  desire  a  knowledge  of  his 
ways.  I  know  that  in  Rom.  10  :  13  Paul,  quoting  from 
Joel  2  :  32,  says:  "Whosoever  shall  call  upon  the  name 
of  Jehovah  shall  be  saved;"  and  proceeds  to  say  that 
they  must  hear  of  him  before  they  can  call  upon  him; 
but  in  verse  18  he  asserts  that  all  men  have  heard  of  him 
through  his  works,  which  in  chapter  I  :  19,  20  he  declares 
so  far  reveal  him  that  men  are  without  excuse  if  they 
do  not  glorify  him  as  God.  But  if  any  refuse  to  walk 
by  the  light  they  have,  either  with  the  knowledge  of 


THE  WORLD  TO  COM3.  101 

Jesus  Christ,  or  in  ignorance  of  his  salvation,  they  shall  be 
destroyed;  and  in  thus  dealing  with  them,  God  is  as 
benificent  as  he  is  just,  in  depriving  them  of  the  ex- 
istence which  through  their  alienation  from  him,  if  pro- 
longed, could  only  be  to  his  dishonor,  and  their  own 
unspeakable  loss. 


CHAPTER    X. 


'HE  writer  has  made  these  thoughts  public  in  the 
hope  of  removing,  or  at  least  lessening  some  of  the 
obstacles  to  the  progress  of  the  kingdom  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  There  is  no  denying  that  in  lands 
nominally  Christian,  great  numbers  of  the  moral  and 
intelligent  are  out  of  practical  sympathy  with  the  aims 
and  interests  of  the  church,  and  it  seems  to  him  that  one 
prominent  reason  is  that  the  church  teaches  doctrines 
that  do  not  commend  themselves  to  the  reason  of  think- 
ing men,  and  which  are  not  so  plainly  announced  in  the 
Bible  as  to  demand  acceptance  as  the  word  of  God. 
Multitudes,  I  believe,  in  Christian  lands  are  prevented 
from  accepting  the  offer  of  God's  grace,  because  it  is 
presented  to  them  as  a  remedy  for  an  ill  from  which  they 
cannot  be  made  to  believe  themselves  suffering;  a  way 
of  escape  from  a  danger  which  they  feel  is  not  impend- 
ing; a  redemption  from  a  penalty  they  have  not  incurred. 
Never  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  world  has  intelli- 
gence been  so  general  among  men  as  now,  and  this  in- 
telligence is  brought  to  bear  upon  religious  as  well  as 
secular  matters.  The  assertion  is  doubtless  true  that 
never  were  there  half  the  number  of  persons  studying 
the  Bible  as  at  the  present  day.  The  more  critical  ren- 
dering of  God's  word  out  of  the  languages  in  which  it 

(102) 


/  THE  WORLD  TO  COMK.  103 

was  originally  written,  and  the  many  helps  provided  for 
its  study  by  those  who  can  read  neither  Hebrew  or 
Greek,  are  factors  in  the  problem  that  must  be  taken 
into  the  account.  One  can  hardly  attend  any  church  a 
few  months  without  listening  to  sermons  from  texts 
which  any  careful  reader  of  the  Bible  knows  are  no 
foundation  for  the  teachings  built  upon  them,  and  though 
the  truth  inculcated  might  be  found  in  some  other  part 
of  the  Bible,  because  it  is  not  in  the  passage  under  con- 
sideration, the  listener  silently  protests  during  the  whole 
sermon,  and  goes  away  inclined  to  doubt  the  entire  Bible, 
when  it  was  only  the  human  infirmity  of  the  preacher 
that  was  at  fault.  At  the  last  prayer-meeting  I  attended 
the  passage  of  Scripture  selected  was  I  John  3  : 14,  24, 
and  the  subject,  "American  Indians  Our  Brothers."  Our 
pastor  included  not  only  the  Indians,  but  the  hetero- 
geneous crowd  of  immigrants  thatis  flocking  to  our  shores, 
not  omitting  those  from  the  Flowery  Kingdom,  and 
pressed  upon  us  all  our  duties  to  them  as  brethren,  as 
taught  in  this  chapter.  Another  clergyman,  a  D.  D., 
who  was  present,  in  his  prayer  asked  that  professing 
Christians  "  might  be  made  sensible  that  unless  they 
cherished  the  love  here  mentioned  towards  the  Indians 
the  love  of  God  was  not  in  them."  It  is  so  plain  that 
the  apostle  is  not  writing  regarding  the  duty  of  man  to 
man,  but  of  the  relation  existing  between  Christians 
growing  out  of  their  union  with  Jesus  Christ,  that  it  ap- 
peared to  me  a  perversion  of  Scripture  to  attempt  to  teach 
from  it  that  a  Christian  should  cherish  the  same  love 
and  tenderness  for  a  murdering  Apache  that  he  does  for 
his  fellow  Christians  with  whom  he  has  a  common  faith, 


104  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

a  common  Lord,  and  a  common  life.  And  how  could 
one  join  in  the  prayer  that  the  "  Holy  Spirit  would  make 
him  sensible  that,  unless  such  were  his  feelings,  he  was 
abiding  in  death,  and  without  evidence  that  the  love  of 
God  dwelt  in  him?"  I  have  heard  more  than  one  ser- 
mon preached  from  Prov.  1:24,  26:  "Because  I  have 
called  and  ye  have  refused,  I.  have  stretched  out  my  hand 
and  no  man  regarded  .  .  .  .  •  I  also  will  laugh  at 
your  calamity  and  mock  when  your  fear  cometh."  The 
speakers  uniformly  put  these  words  in  the  mouth  of 
God,  and  based  their  teachings  upon  them  as  his  utter- 
ances. The  most  superficial  student  can  see  that  it  is 
wisdom  personified  who  is  speaking,  and  not  the  Lord, 
and  anyone  conversant  with  the  Bible  should  know  that 
the  idea  of  God's  laughing  at  the  distress  of  his  creatures, 
wicked  and  rebellious  though  they  be,  or  of  adding  to 
their  misery  by  mocking  taunts,  is  utterly  at  variance 
with  all  which  he  has  said  in  relation  to  the  subject. 
Our  divine  Master  wept  over  the  calamities  which  he 
foresaw  about  to  fall  upon  his  persecutors  and  murderers, 
but  no  word  of  mockery  or  laugh  of  anticipated  satis- 
faction over  their  coming  overthrow  was  ever  heard  from 
him.  It  is  true  that  in  Ps.  2:4  God  is  represented  as 
deriding  the  futile  attempts  of  men  to  frustrate  his 
eternal  purposes,  but  this  is  a  very  different  matter  from 
that  referred  to  above.  Another  similar  perversion  of 
Scripture  is  illustrated  by  Prov.  8:17.  There  is  hardly 
a  Sunday-school  in  the  land  that  has  not  upon  its  walls: 
"They  that  seek  me  early  shall  find  me,"  and  the  chil- 
dren are  taught  that  these  are  the  words  of  God,  ex- 
pressing the  relation  in  which  they  stand  towards  him. 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  105 

If  the  child  is  ever  led  to  study  the  Bible, or  even  to  read 
it  attentively,  he  finds  that  it  is  wisdom  which  he  is  ad- 
monished to  strive  to  gain;  redemption  from  ignorance, 
not  redemption  from  sin  as  he  has  been  taught;  and 
also  that  "  early  "  has  no  reference  to  the  tender  years 
of  the  seeker,  but  only  to  the  diligence  with  which  he  is 
to  seek,  and  he  feels,  to  put  it  in  plain  English,  that  he 
has  been  deceived,  and  whether  he  concludes  that  his 
teachers  did  it  intentionally  or  in  ignorance,  the  result  to 
him  is  the  same  in  lessening  the  value  and  authority  of 
everything  else  they  have  taught  him. 

In  i  Tim.  i  :8  Paul  says:  "The  law  is  good  if  one 
use  it  lawfully  "  (what  a  pity  that  it  is  not  so  used  to  a 
greater  degree),  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  entire 
word  of  God;  and  for  a  minister,  set  to  watch  for  souls, 
to  take  any  single  verse  or  passage  of  Scripture,  and  use 
it  out  of  the  connection  in  which  God  put  it.  seems  to 
me  a  crime  to  be  taken  note  of  by  all  who  have  the  over- 
sight of  the  church  of  Jesus  Christ  The  passages  quoted 
are  only  illustrations  of  the  evil  referred  to;  and  such 
perversions,  as  I  call  them,  every  one  can  recall,  and  it  is 
needless  to  multiply  examples. 

The  teaching  by  the  church  of  the  inherent  immor- 
tality of  the  soul,  and  its  destiny  unless  reconciled  to 
God,  to  endless  misery,  is  another  stumbling-block  to 
some  who  are  seeking  to  know  the  truth.  As  said  at 
the  opening  of  this  chapter,  men  neglect  or  refuse  to 
avail  themselves  of  the  offer  of  God's  grace,  because  they 
are  urged  to  accept  it  as  a  way  of  escape  from  a  penalty 
which  they  feel  they  have  not  incurred.  The  doctrine 
of  the  endless  suffering  of  the  wicked  is  so  at  variance 


106  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

with  what  the  Bible  reveals  as  the  character  of  God,  that 
the  reason  rebels  against  it;  and  it  is  because  the  church 
generally  insists  that  this  doctrine  and  the  entire  Bible 
stand  or  fall  together,  that  so  many  say,  "  Then  let  the 
Bible  go."  But  it  is  asked,  "  Is  the  Bible  to  be  submitted 
to  the  test  of  human  reason,  and  all  that  proves  unsatis- 
factory to  it  to  be  set  aside  ?  "  By  no  means.  All  that 
I  claim  is  that  when  God  appeals  to  our  reason  he  makes 
full  provision  for  satisfying  all  its  reasonable  demands; 
and  when  he  requires  faith  concerning  matters  above,  or 
without  the  scope  of  our  reason,  he  gives  us  his  sure  word 
for  faith  to  rest  upon. 

When  our  religious  teachers  come  to  us  with  "  Thus 
saitli  the  Lord,"  the  only  province  of  reason  is  to  ascer- 
tain the  fact  of  his  having  sent  the  message,  and  this 
assured,  reverently  and  implicitly  to  abide  by  its  teach- 
ings. But  when  any  man  or  any  number  of  men  come 
to  their  fellow-men  as  teachers  of  religious  truth,  and 
bring  no  "Thus  saith  the  Lord,"  but  only  their  own  in- 
terpretation of  what  he  has  said,  then  reason  asserts 
the  right  and  duty  of  trying  in  her  court  the  correctness 
of  their  conclusions;  and  the  acceptance  of  religious 
teachings  upon  the  authority  of  men,  unless  enforced  by 
"  Thus  saith  the  Lord,"  or  the  sanction  of  our  own 
reason,  appears  to  me  not  faith  but  credulity.  But  re- 
turning from  our  digression,  let  us  examine  a  little  more 
in  detail  the  position  occupied  by  the  objectors  to  the 
Bible  as  a  revelation  from  God,  on  the  ground  stated, 
which  was  touched  upon  in  the  last  chapter.  These 
objectors  argue,  with  a  great  deal  of  plausibility,  that 
the  Bible  cannot  be  a  revelation  from  God  for  it 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  107 

teaches  (so  its  advocates  claim)  that  the  Creator  has 
brought  into  being  a  race  that  he  knew  would  transgress 
his  laws,  and  in  numberless  instances  would  refuse  to 
return  to  their  allegiance  upon  the  offer  of  mercy  being 
extended  to  them,  and  that  in  his  creative  act  they  are 
so  constituted  that  they  must  be  eternally  sinful  and 
intolerably  miserable.  If,  say  they,  the  Bible  teaches 
this,  we  do  not  believe  it  ever  came  from  God.  If  it 
docs  not  teach  it,  then  its  expounders  are  either  igno- 
rant of  its  true  meaning,  or  they  are  willfully  misleading 
men  in  preaching  what  they  do  not  themselves  believe, 
and  so  prove  themselves  hypocrites.  This  is  their  case, 
as  they  put  it. 

Now,  if  the  clear,  undisputed  declaration  of  the 
Bible  were  that  man  was  so  created,  and  so  destined,  we 
might,  according  to  our  light  and  ability,  seek  to  refute 
their  arguments,  oppose  their  designs,  and  calmly  wait 
for  God  to  vindicate  his  ways  in  his  own  good  time. 
But,  if,  in  the  absence  of  this  distinct  utterance  of  God's 
word,  and  with  so  much  to  the  contrary  in  its  teachings, 
we  admit  that  the  Bible  teaches  that  eternal  life  was 
only  a  possibility  for  man,  as  originally  created,  to  be 
conferred  as  the  reward  of  obedience  during  his  proba- 
tionary term,  and  that  having,  through  transgression, 
forfeited  all  right  to  this,  his  Creator,  in  purest  mercy, 
renewed  the  offer,  not  upon  condition  of  perfect  obedience, 
which  man  could  not  now  render,  but  upon  the  condi- 
tion of  faith,  which,  with  the  proffered  help  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  he  could  exercise,  we  deprive  such  cavilers  of 
any  ground  to  base  such  an  argument  upon;  for  the 
Bible  shows  God  to  be  infinite  in  mercy  in  postponing 


io8  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

the  infliction  of  the  penalty  incurred,  and  in  providing 
another  way  in  which  the  obtaining  of  the  blessing  was 
made  possible  to  all.  If,  however,  any  fail  to  avail 
themselves  of  this  second  opportunity,  they  shall  be 
destroyed,  and  in  their  destruction,  the  hatred  of  God  for 
sin,  and  his  justice  in  destroying  the  sinner,  are  no  more 
apparent  than  are  his  love  and  mercy,  as  has  before  been 
shown. 

The  final  death  of  the  wicked  cannot  be  made  the 
basis  for  charging  God  with  cruelty,  for,  though  the 
language  of  the  Bible  would  imply  that  their  destruction 
is  accomplished  by  an  absolute  act  of  God,  no  such  act 
is  necessary  on  his  part;  for  the  soul,  being  in  its  nature 
subject  to  death,  and  sustained  in  life  only  by  the  will 
and  power  of  its  Creator,  the  moment  these  are  withheld 
it  perishes  because  of  its  inability  to  preserve  its  own 
life,  for  "  none  can  keep  alive  his  own  soul."  Ps.  22  :  29. 

There  is,  it  appears  to  me,  another  error  through 
which  our  religious  teachers  confuse  themselves,  mislead 
those  who  wait  upon  their  ministry,  and  invalidate  the 
teachings  of  the  Bible  upon  this  subject,  in  not  distinctly 
separating,  in  their  minds,  as  also  in  the  minds  of  their 
people,  the  penalty  affixed  by  God  to  sin,  from  the  con- 
sequences, or  results,  of  sin.  We  see  in  the  world 
around  us  that  the  transgression  of  God's  laws  in  the 
realm  of  physics,  entails  temporal  loss  and  suffering,  and 
so,  easily  and  without  much  reflection,  accept  the  doc- 
trine that  eternal  suffering  is  the  punishment  for  trans- 
gressing his  moral  laws.  This,  however,  is  not  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Bible,  but  rather  of  that  wonderful  creation  of 
man's  genius,  "  Paradise  Lost,"  which  grand  and  perhaps 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  109 


unequalled  as  it  is  as  a  poetic  conception,  has,  I  think, 
done  incalculable  harm  as  a  basis  of  religious  belief. 
Because  of  this  confounding  of  penalty  affixed  to  trans- 
gression, with  the  consequences  resulting  from  it,  many 
sincere  Christians  think  the  truth  of  God's  word  is  assailed 
when  anything  else  than  eternal,  insupportable  anguish 
is  allotted  to  the  wicked  as  their  portion.  When  God 
created  man,  and  established  him  upon  this  earth,  and 
gave  him  dominion  over  the  lower  order  of  creation,  he 
laid  upon  him  one  interdict,  and  affixed  to  its  disregard 
a  specific  penalty.  The  prohibition  related  to  the  tree 
of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil;  the  penalty  for  disobedi- 
ence was  death,  nothing  more,  nothing  less,  and  nothing 
else.  But  it  is  asked,  Does  not  the  Bible  say  that  sin 
brought  death  into  the  world  and  a1  I  our  woes?  A  great 
many  think  it  does,  but  of  all  I  have  asked  to  do  so, 
none  have  been  able  to  refer  me  to  the  verse,  and  with 
hardly  an  exception  people  are  surprised  to  learn  that 
Milton,  and  not  Paul  is  the  author  of  the  sentiment. 
What  Paul  does  say  is,  "  By  one  man  sin  entered  into  the 
world,  and  death  by  sin,  and  so  death  passed  upon  all 
men.''  Rom.  5:12. 

In  human  laws  the  same  difference  is  often  to  be 
seen  between  the  penalty  for  transgression  and  the  results 
of  transgression.  For  instance,  a  man  is  engaged  in 
business  as  a  merchant,  he  has  the  confidence  of  the 
community  in  which  he  lives,  his  business  is  fairly  pros- 
perous and  enables  him  to  support  in  comfort  and  hap- 
piness the  wife  and  family  that  bless  and  brighten  his 
home.  In  an  evil  hour  temptation  assails  and  overcomes 
him,  and  he  fraudulently  signs  the  name  of  another. 


i  io  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

His  crime  is  discovered  and  fastened  upon  him,  and  the 
penalty  for  forgery,  which  is  confinement  in  the  State 
Prison,  is  inflicted  upon  him;  and  this  is  as  far  as  the 
penalty  for  his  crime  reaches.  But  its  consequences  do 
not  end  here.  His  business,  which,  under  his  watchful 
eye  and  careful  hand,  yielded  a  fair  return,  in  the  care 
of  mercenary  or  incompetent  agents,  is  conducted  at  a 
loss;  and  soon  poverty  succeeds  to  competence,  and  want 
takes  the  place  of  plenty  in  that  once  happy  home,  and 
the  wife  and  little  ones  are  introduced  to  a  life  of  hard- 
ship and  privation  The  law  took  no  cognizance  of  all 
their  sufferings  in  affixing  the  penalty  of  imprisonment 
to  the  crime  of  forgery;  these  are  no  part  of  the  legal 
penalty,  neither  are  the  grief  and  remorse  which  wring 
the  heart  of  the  criminal  when  he  learns  that  those  he 
loves  so  well  are  exposed  to  these  bitter  experiences 
which  are  the  consequences  of  his  wrong  doing,  but  are 
no  part  of  the  penalty  contemplated  by  the  law.  One 
point  to  be  kept  in  mind  during  all  the  investigation  of 
this  subject,  I  think,  is  that  God  has  not  permitted  any 
vagueness  or  uncertainty  to  exist  regarding  the  penalty 
which  he  has  affixed  to  sin.  In  the  very  beginning  of 
the  race  he  made  it  clearly  known  to  our  first  parents, 
**  In  the  day  thou  eatest  thereof  thou  shalt  surely  die." 
Gen:  2:17.  Further  on  in  the  history  of  the  race  he 
reiterates  in  most  unmistakable  language,  "  The  soul 
that  sinneth  it  shall  die."  Eze.  18:4.  And  in  Rom. 
6  :  23  Paul  says,  "  The  wages  of  sin  is  death."  We  see, 
therefore,  that  the  full  penalty  denounced  by  God  against 
the  sinner  is  inflicted  when  he  passes  under  the  power  of 
the  second  death,  even  though  that  experience  should 
be  a  release  from  suffering,  rather  than  its  infliction. 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  1 1 1 

Suppose,  in  the  instance  above  cited,  that  the  con- 
demned, instead  of  being  so  pleasantly  situated  as 
regards  worldly  surroundings,  had  been  an  outcast,  with- 
out home  or  friends,  with  no  means  of  support,  aban- 
doned and  vile.  The  change  to  inside  the  prison  walls, 
in  his  case,  is  all  for  the  better.  He  has  clean,  com- 
fortable clothes  in  place  of  his  dilapidated  ones;  whole- 
some and  nutritious  food,  which,  though  coarse,  is 
abundant;  he  is  taught  some  useful  trade,  and  made  ca- 
pable of  earning  an  honest  living.  All  this  is  a  real 
blessing  to  him,  but,  nevertheless,  the  requirements  of 
justice  are  as  fully  met  in  the  infliction  of  the  penalty 
affixed  to  the  crime  as  in  the  former  case.  Therefore,  I 
do  not  see  that  we  need  exercise  ourselves  over  the  ob- 
jection that  is  urged  against  the  doctrine  of  the  eternal 
death  of  the  wicked,  that  instead  of  being  an  infliction 
upon  them  of  suffering,  it  is  an  escape  from  it;  for  God 
nowhere  in  his  word  attaches  suffering  to  sin  as  its  pen- 
alty, but  always  death,  and  if  his  holy  law  is  satisfied 
when  the  denounced  penalty  is  inflicted,  why  should  we 
as  less  tolerant  of  sin  than  God,  insist  upon  a  more  ter- 
rible expiation  ?  David  understood  human  nature  well 
when  he  chose  to  fall  into  the  hand  of  God  rather  than 
into  the  hands  of  men,  for,  said  he,  "  his  mercies  are 
great."  2  Sam.  24:10,  14.  Another  objection  raised 
against  the  doctrine  of  the  final  destruction  of  the 
wicked  is  that,  should  it  prevail,  it  would  induce  men  to 
continue  in  sin,  inasmuch  as  present  gratification  would 
be  considered  more  than  an  equivalent  for  ultimate  de- 
struction, and  if  men  understood  that  no  suffering  was 
attached  to  sin,  a  very  great  inducement,  which  is  now 
held  out  to  them  to  turn  to  God,  would  be  taken  away. 


ii2  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

In  the  first  place,  if  this  doctrine  is  in  accord  with 
what  God  has  revealed  in  the  Bible,  we  have  nothing  to 
do  with  the  possible  effects  of  teaching  it.  Our  only 
concern  should  be  to  know  what  God  says,  being  satis- 
fied that  his  word  will  not  return  to  him  void,  but  will 
accomplish  that  which  he  purposes.  In  the  sec- 
ond place,  the  Bible  does  not  say  that  suffering  does  not 
result  from  sin,  but,  on  the  contrary,  plainly  says  in  the 
parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus  (Luke  16),  that 
after  death,  and  before  the  Judgment,  the  wicked  shall 
suffer  intense  anguish.  The  expression,  "  The  wrath  of 
the  Lamb,"  in  Rev.  6:16,  suggests  in  its  single  line  more 
of  terror,  anguish,  and  despair,  than  the  farthest  reach 
of  our  imagination  can  attain  to,  or  language  express; 
and  if  terror  is  the  element  to  be  employed  in  bringing 
men  back  to  repentance,  faith,  and  love,  there  is  enough 
in  these  few  words  when  brought  home  to  an  awakened 
conscience,  to  make  the  stoutest-hearted  sinner  cry  for 
mercy. 

But  is  it  true  that  the  teaching  of  this  doctrine  will 
encourage  men  in  sin  ?  In  Job  2:4  we  read:  "  All  that 
a  man  hath  will  he  give  for  his  life,"  and  though  this  is 
the  assertion  of  the  father  of  lies,  God  acted  upon  it  as 
if  true,  and  human  experience  through  all  time  shows 
that,  to  the  great  mass  of  humanity,  even  this  mortal 
life,  with  all  its  discomforts  and  uncertainties,  is  more 
precious  than  any  other  possession.  If  this  is  so  in  re- 
lation to  this  brief,  unsatisfactory  stage  of  being,  is  it 
reasonable  to  say  that  the  possibility  of  an  endless  life, 
freed  from  the  surroundings  that  so  try  and  grieve  us 
here,  and  with  our  natures  brought  into  perfect  harmony 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  1 1 3 

with  God,  presents  no  inducement,  or,  at  most,  a  very 
slight  one,  to  turn  to  God  ?  Some,  it  is  too  probable 
that  many,  will  go  on  in  sin  regardless  of  the  crown  of 
life  held  out  as  the  prize  to  him  that  overcometh.  But 
this  tells  nothing  for  or  against  the  tendency  of  this 
teaching,  for  multitudes  reject  the  offers  of  God's  grace, 
even  though  enforced  with  all  the  alternative  terrors  of 
an  eternity  of  sin,  constantly  increasing  in  sinfulness, 
accompanied,  step  by  step,  with  an  accumulating  misery, 
till,  in  the  cycles  of  eternity,  the  sin  of  each  condemned 
soul  shall  exceed  the  aggregate  sins  of  the  whole  race, 
and  his  sufferings  because  of  his  sin  shall  outweigh  the 
accumulated  misery  of  the  entire  race  throughout  all 
time;  and  then  his  sin,  his  suffering,  and  his  capacity  for 
sinning  and  suffering  shall  be  only  in  the  infantile  stage 
of  their  development. 

Multitudes,  I  say,  have  rejected  the  offer  of  mercy, 
even  when  taught  from  the  pulpit  that  this  was  the  pun- 
ishment for  unforgiven  sin.  Multitudes,  to-day,  with 
these  teachings  sounding  in  their  ears,  and  under  the 
full  light  of  the  gospel,  turn  away  from  the  salvation  it 
offers,  and  probably  multitudes  would  continue  to  reject 
God's  mercy  should  the  church  teach  the  eternal  destruc- 
tion of  the  wicked,  instead  of  their  eternal  misery.  But, 
as  said  before,  that  proves  nothing  as  to  the  truth  or 
falsity  of  the  doctrine.  Although  a  cense  of  loss  or  dan- 
ger must  precede  any  appreciation  of  the  need  and  im- 
portance of  a  Saviour,  terror  induced  by  representations 
such  as  above  described  is  no  necessary  element  in  bring- 
ing men  to  a  sense  of  their  danger,  and  their  need  of  the 
salvation  offered  through  Jesus  Christ.  Indeed,  the  dom- 
8 


ii4  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

mating  influence  of  such  a  dread  in  the  heart,  it  seems 
to  me,  must  hinder  one  from  coming  to  God  with  that 
disposition  which  is  pleasing  to  him.  The  love  of  men 
is  what  he  asks  for,  and  on  this  foundation  the  Holy 
Spirit  builds  up  the  structure  of  faith  and  works; 
but  slavish  fear  and  filial  love  cannot  exist  to- 
gether, and  the  heart  that  will  not  yield  its  su- 
preme faith  and  love  to  God  under  the  clear  presenta- 
tion of  the  ruin  wrought  by  sin,  the  infinite  love  and 
compassion  of  Jesus  Christ  in  working  out,  through  his 
own  humiliation  and  sacrifice,  a  complete  salvation  from 
that  ruin,  and  through  his  own  death  offering  to  the 
condemned  sinner  eternal  life,  made  glorious  by  being 
clothed  upon  with  the  robe  of  his  righteousness,  and 
beatific  in  conformity  to  his  will  and  the  enjoyment  of 
hi">  favor,  would  hardly  be  prompted  to  the  exercise  of 
that  faith,  and  the  yielding  that  love  through  fear  of 
punishment,  even  should  a  lost  soul  return  from  hades 
and  emphasize,  out  of  his  own  fearful  experience,  the 
destructive  tendencies  of  sin,  and  the  terrible  character 
of  its  retribution. 


CHAPTER  XL 


'HERE  does  not  appear  to  me  any  valid  objection 
either  in  revelation,  reason,  or  experience  to  the 
plain  preaching  of  this  doctrine  of  the  destruction 
of  the  finally  impenitent  at  the  day  of  Judgment;  and 
all  its  collateral  truths,  one  of  which,  and  not  the  least 
important,  is  that  while  eternal  life  is  wholly  of  grace 
and  a  free  gift  through  Jesus  Christ,  the  conditions  per- 
taining to  that  life,  though  all  flowing  from  the  favor  of 
God,  and  partaking  of  the  blessedness  resulting  from 
conformity  to  his  will  and  harmony  with  his  purposes 
may  be  diverse  in  different  individuals  within  the  widest 
conceivable  limits,  according  as  the  acts  and  motives 
during  this  probationary  state  have  been  loyal  and  lov- 
ing toward  our  Lord,  or  careless  of  his  honor,  and  in- 
different to  the  interests  of  his  kingdom.  When  the 
church  teaches  that  eternal  life  means  all  of  unending 
felicity  that  God  can  bestow,  there  is  nothing  left  of  any 
supplemental  good  to  be  obtained  as  a  reward  for  the 
aspiring,  neither  is  there  any  loss  to  those  who  appar- 
ently constituting  the  great  mass  of  our  churches,  are 
content  with  their  present  condition  and  prospects 
Having  been  taught  by  their  spiritual  guides  that  by 
eternal  life  is  meant  all  of  beatitude  for  which  their 
natures  have  capacity,  and  that  this  is  the  free  gift  of 
(US) 


n6  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

God  without  merit  on  their  part,  they  logically  conclude 
that  nothing  they  can  do  or  leave  undone  can  augment 
or  diminish  the  measure  of  consummate  bliss  involved 
in  the  gift  of  eternal  life. 

Let  it  be  admitted  that  eternal  life  means  the  con- 
ditions that  pertain  to  life,  and  not  the  life  itself,  and 
that  these  conditions  are  perfect  holiness  and  supreme 
felicity  to  the  fullest  capacity  of  the  recipient,  and  it 
seems  to  me  that  you  have  discovered  one  of  the  rea- 
sons of  the  great,  and  to  many  inexplicable  apathy  re- 
garding spiritual  attainments,  which  pervades  so  largely 
our  churches  of  all  denominations,  and  renders  their 
members  content  to  remain  on  so  low  a  plane  as  regards 
religious  duties  and  knowledge.  Our  Creator  has  made 
us  with  natures  powerfully  susceptible  to  the  influence 
of  prospective  reward  consequent  upon  certain  actions,, 
and  himself  appeals  to  this  quality  constantly  in  his 
dealings  with  men,  as  shown  in  the  Scriptures.  Abram 
was  stimulated  to  leave  his  early  home  and  kindred  by 
the  promise  of  God  that  he  would  make  of  him  a  great 
nation.  Gen.  12  : 1,  2.  Moses,  in  casting  in  his  lot  with 
God's  anointed  people,  "  had  respect  unto  the  recompense 
of  the  reward"  (Heb.  11  126),  and  in  dealing  with  his 
chosen  people  God  always  coupled  reward  with  obedi- 
ence. Our  Lord  when  on  earth  constantly  appealed  to 
this  sentiment  in  encouraging  his  disciples.  (See  Matt 
10  :  40,  42,  and  19  :  28,  29.)  In  Heb.  12:2  we  learn  that 
our  Lord  himself  was  not  insensible  to  its  power,  for  it 
there  says  that  he  "  for  the  'joy  set  before  him  endured 
the  cross  despising  the  shame,"  and  in  Isa.  53:11,  "  He 
shall  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul  and  be  satisfied." 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  117 

The  very  closing  of  Revelation  says:  "  I  come,  quickly 
and  rny  reward  is  with  me  to  give  to  every  man  accord- 
ing as  his  work  shall  be."  Rev.  22:  12.  If  this  quality 
in  our  natures  is  so  constantly  and  effectively  used  by 
God  in  influencing  men  for  good,  why  should  those  who 
are  seeking  to  win  men  to  God  ignore  it  in  their  efforts  ? 
The  church  of  Rome  is  wiser  than  we  in  this  respect, 
for  the  rewards  for  certain  deeds  and  alms  are  fully  set 
forth  by  her  teachers,  though  the  objects  which  can  be 
gained  by  them  are  falsely  stated. 

No  man  can  by  any  work  or  merit  of  his  own  ob- 
tain the  pardon  of  one  sin,  or  stand  justified  before  God. 
""  The  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall  die,"  "  for  whosoever  shall 
keep  the  whole  law,  and  yet  offend  in  one  point,  he  is 
guilty  of  all."  Jas.  2  :  10.  But  the  penalty  of  death 
once  remitted  through  faith,  and  eternal  life  accepted  as 
a  free  gift,  from  that  moment  the  stimulus  of  rewards 
is  legitimately  employed.  I  say  legitimately,  for  our 
blessed  Lord  himself  employs  it  when  he  says,  Whoso 
giveth  a  cup  of  water  to  one  of  mine  for  my  sake  shall 
in  no  wise  lose  his  reward.  It  is  said  that  this  is  a  low 
Jevel  to  work  upon,  and  that  our  service  for  the  Master 
.should  spring  from  love  and  gratitude,  and  not  from 
hope  of  reward,  and  this  probably  is  true;  but  our  Father 
in  Heaven  takes  us  as  we  are,  and  purifies  what  in  us  is 
impure,  cleanses  what  is  defiled,  elevates  what  is  debased, 
and  spiritualizes  what  is  material,  "  howbeit  that  is  not 
first  which  is  spiritual  but  that  which  is  natural  and  after- 
ward that  which  is  spiritual.*'  While  we  are  in  the  flesh 
if  we  can  judge  from  revelation  and  observation,  God 
has  made  our  very  being  to  depend  upon  a  certain  amount 


n8  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 


of  self-love,  which  induces  us  to  care  for  ourselves  and 
anticipate  and  provide  for  our  welfare;  and  this  he  has 
made  perfectly  compatible  with  our  love  for  him  and  our 
fellow-men;  and  if  he  holds  out  rewards  as  an  induce- 
ment to  effort,  should  his  servants  seek  to  be  wiser  than 
he? 

I  have  within  a  few  months  listened  to  an  influential, 
aggressive,  hardworking,  orthodox  minister,  as  he  sought 
to  fire  his  people  with  greater  zeal  in  active  Christian 
work,  and  to  higher  attainment  in  Christian  character, 
in  order  that  their  condition  in  Heaven  might  be  one  of 
greater  honor  and  brighter  effulgence.  But  as  his  hearers 
had  all  their  lives  been  taught  that  eternal  life  was  per- 
fect holiness  and  complete,  unending  felicity,  and  as  this 
was  secured  to  them  through  Jesus  Christ  as  a  free  gift, 
independent  of  any  merit  in  them,  they  could  hardly  be 
made  to  understand  how  anything  could  be  added  to 
this  as  a  reward  for  anything  they  might  do,  unless  in 
some  mysterious  way  a  vessel  could  be  filled  to  its  ut- 
most capacity  and  then  made  a  little  fuller.  The  church 
deprives  herself  and  her  Lord  of  one  of  the  very  strongest 
arguments  for  active  Christian  work  and  giving  on  the 
part  of  its  members,  when  she  teaches  that  eternal  life 
means  not  the  life  itself  secured  eternally,  but  the  con- 
ditions pertaining  to  it;  for  the  Bible  asserts  repeatedly 
and  emphatically  that  eternal  life  is  God's  free  gift,  and 
in  the  obtaining  of  it,  nothing  that  a  man  can  do  can  have 
the  least  effect.  Now  if  eternal  life  means  the  moral  re- 
lations a  man  sustains  toward  God,  and  the  conditions 
under  which  he  exists  in  the  world  to  come,  then  noth- 
ing that  he  can  do,  having  once  secured  this  gift,  can  in 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  119 


any  way  affect  these  relations  or  conditions.  But  if  it 
means,  as  I  define  it,  then  having  through  faith  and  re- 
pentance received  the  gift,  a  man  may,  by  loving  service 
for  Jesus  through  the  help  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  cultivate 
and  strengthen  those  relations,  and  enrich  and  adorn  and 
beautify  those  conditions,  and  lay  up  for  himself  treasure 
in  Heaven  that  shall  immeasurably  affect  the  happiness 
of  that  eternal  life. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  plain  teaching  of  the 
Bible  is  that  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  the  begetting  from 
above,  imparts  to  the  believer  a  life  which  partakes 
of  his  own  divine  nature,  and,  as  in  the  natural  birth, 
the  life  derived  from  our  parents  partakes  of  their  nat- 
ure and  limitations,  so  in  the  new  birth,  the  life  de- 
rived from  the  begetting  of  the  Holy  Spirit  partakes 
of  the  nature  of  the  divine  parentage,  and,  consequently, 
must  be  not  only  eternal  in  duration,  but  holy  in  char- 
acter, although  not  necessarily  consummate  in  blessed- 
ness. It  may  be  objected  that  if  this  position  is  correct, 
the  believer  must  also  be  omniscient  and  omnipotent, 
and  possessed  of  perfect  beatitude,  as  all  these  attributes 
pertain  to  God.  All  that  I  can  answer  to  this  is,  that 
nowhere  have  we  the  promise  of  any  such  participation 
in  the  perfections  of  the  All-perfect  One,  but  we  have  the 
assurance  of  an  endless  duration  (John  10  :  28;  I  John 
2:17),  and  of  perfect  holiness  (Heb.-  12  :  10),  and  the 
word  of  God  is  a  sure  foundation  to  rest  upon.  I  do 
not  find  anywhere  in  the  Bible  the  assurance  that  the 
portion  of  the  redeemed  from  among  men  shall  be  the 
satisfaction  of  every  wish,  or  that  this  is  the  portion  of 
the  pure  and  holy  who  have  never  sinned. 


120  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

I  know  that  the  received  definition  of  "  eternal  life  " 
has  carried  with  it  an  implication  of  this,  and  our  hymn 
speaks  of  having  '  every  longing  satisfied,  with  full  fru- 
ition blessed,"  but  I  do  not  find  it  in  the  Bible  even  by 
implication.  We  read  in  Rev.  7  :  17  and  21  14,  that 
"  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears,"  and  that  there  shall  be 
"no  more  death,  neither  sorrow  nor  crying,  nor  any  more 
pain."  These  experiences  are  the  penalty  and  result 
of  broken  law,  and  cannot  be  known  there,  as  all  will 
be  at  one  with  the  will  of  God,  and  obedience  to  his  laws 
can  never  bring  anything  but  good.  But  all  the  above  as- 
surances may  be  realized,  and  the  redeemed  fall  far  short 
of  that  beatitude  in  which,  in  connection  with  holiness,  we 
arc  taught  eternal  life  is  to  consist.  It  does  not  appear  to 
me  that  any  such  beatific  condition  is  promised  or  even 
to  be  desired.  Without  new  revelations  of  the  Infinite 
One  to  be  received,  new  service  for  him  to  be  rendered, 
present  mysteries  to  be  solved,  and  desires  gratified. 
an  intelligent  being  would  sink  into  apathy  and  indif- 
ference. In  i  Peter  I  :  12  we  are  told  that  the  angels  de- 
sired to  investigate  the  great  mystery  of  the  incarnation ; 
and  the  inference  is  that  they  vvere  not  permitted  to  do  so. 
Although  every  will,  whether  of  holy  angel  or  redeemed 
sinner,  will  be  in  harmony  with  the  will  of  God,  and 
perfectly  and  cheerfully  subordinate  thereto,  both  revela- 
tion and  reason,  I  think,  teach  that  there  will  always  be 
something  in  the  future  to  be  gained,  some  wish  un- 
grati.i2d  in  the  present,  and  while  this  is  the  case,  one 
cannot  be  said  to  bs  in  the  realization  of  perfect  bliss.* 

*Since   the  above  was  written,  the  writer  has  listened  to  an  able  and 
successful  orthodox  minister,  who,  preaching  from  Luke  15:7,  showed  con- 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  121 

These,  however,  are,  to  a  certain  extent,  speculations  in 
which  I  have  no  wish  to  indulge  further  than  to  allay 
the  fears  of  some  who  may  think  the  tendency  of  this 
book  is  to  divest  Heaven  of  all  its  attractions,  and  leave 
it  hardly  worth  striving  for. 

An  admission  into  the  family  of  God's  dear  chil- 
dren, gifted  with  powers  that  never  weary,  and  with 
companionship  of  the  pure  and  holy  to  stimulate  us  to 
the  exercise  of  those  powers,  with  the  presence  and  ap- 
proval of  our  divine  Lord  as  the  reward  for  achieve- 
ment,— these  are  the  conditions  attaching  to  the  life 
which  Jesus  Christ  gives  to  all  who  will  accept  it  at  his 
hand  and  upon  his  terms.  They  are  not  the  life,  but 
are  its  concomitants;  and  this  life,  under  these  condi- 
tions, is  not  for  an  age,  or  a  century,  but  is  as  endless  in 
duration  as  he  from  whom  it  is  derived:  "  Because  I 
live,  ye  shall  live  also."  Does  this  conception  of  Heaven 
make  it  appear  unattractive,  and  the  crown  of  life  an 
undesirable  prize  to  strive  for,  even  with  consum- 
mate bliss  left  out  ?  The  consideration  of  a  few  more 
points  will  close  my  undertaking.  In  i  John  2:17  it 
is  said,  "And  the  world  passeth  away  .  .  .  but  he 
that  doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth  forever."  Here,  to 
pass  away,  or  come  to  an  end,  is  set  over  against  abiding 
forever.  In  John  12  :  34  the  Jews  say  to  our  Lord,  "We 
have  read  out  of  the  law  that  Christ  abideth  forever." 
This  in  opposition  to  his  saying  that  if  he  was  lifted 

clusively  that  the  holy  angels  have  their  causes  for  sorrow  and  rejoicing, 
and  that  even  God  is  no  stranger  to  these  emotions.  This  being  so,  the 
redeemed  from  among  men  have  no  reason  to  expect  that  consummate 
bliss  is  to  be  their  portion. 


122  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

up  from  the  earth  he  would  draw  all  men  unto  him;  and 
in  i  Cor.  13:13,  the  graces  that  shall  abide  are  put  in 
sharp  contrast  with  those  that  shall  come  to  an  end. 
The  meaning  of  "  abide  "  is  to  continue  in  being,  as  is 
perhaps  more  clearly  seen  in  Heb.  7  :  23,  25,  where  the 
Greek  word  translated  "continue"  is  the  same  as  is  trans- 
lated :' abide"  in  i  John  2  :  17.  Now  if  only  those  who 
do  the  will  of  God  abide  or  are  continued  in  being,  what 
becomes  of  those  who  refuse  or  neglect  to  do  his  will  ? 
Here  is  no  question  of  happiness  or  misery,  no  allusion 
to  the  conditions  under  which  the  existence  is  main- 
tained in  either  case.  The  one  class  "abides,"  is  sus- 
tained in  continued  being,  and  the  plain  inference  is  that 
the  opposite  class,  like  the  world,  which  it  chooses  for  a 
portion,  passes  away. 

In  i  Cor.  15:26  we  read:  "  The- last  enemy  that 
shall  be  destroyed  is  death."  If  death,  which  is  the 
penalty  for  transgression,  is  eternal  alienation  from  God 
and  holiness,  with  consequent,  constantly  augmenting 
suffering,  how  can  this  in  any  sense  be  said  to  be  destroyed 
so  long  as  it  exercises  unlimited  sway  over  such  multi- 
tudes, or  even  a  single  one  of  our  race  ?  The  penalty 
for  sin  is  death,  and  if  this  is  a  synonym  for  endless  mis- 
ery, then  death  never  is  destroyed  or  "  made  of  none  ef- 
fect" (for  this  is  the  meaning  of  the  Greek  Katargeo, 
translated  "destroyed");  his  reign  is  co-eternal  with  that  of 
God  himself.  But  this  cannot  be,  for  "He  must  reign  till 
he  hath  put  all  enemies  under  his  feet.  The  last  enemy 
that  shall  be  destroyed  is  death,  for  he  hath  put  all  things 
under  his  feet."  At  the  coming  of  our  Lord  to  judgment, 
every  one  of  our  race  upon  whom  death  has  any  claim 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  123 

shall  be  destroyed  with  an  eternal  destruction;  and  he, 
left  without  a  single  subject  in  existence  over  whom  to 
exercise  his  authority,  shall  "  become  of  none  effect" 
Upon  any  other  teaching  respecting  the  final  award  to 
the  wicked,  I  cannot  see  how  death  can,  with  any  pro- 
priety, be  said  to  be  destroyed.  The  place  given  by  our 
Lord  in  his  teachings,  as  well  as  by  his  apostles  in  theirs, 
to  his  resurrection  from  the  dead,  is  corroborative  of  the 
definition  herein  given  to  "life"  and  "death."  The 
stress  placed  upon  this  event  by  our  Lord  himself,  as 
well  as  by  his  apostles,  is  easily  understood  if  these 
words  are  taken  to  mean  as  herein  defined;  but  if  they 
mean  the  relation  of  our  moral  natures  to  God,  I  can  see 
no  necessary  connection  between  the  two.  Our  Lord, 
when  in  the  flesh,  predicted  to  his  apostles  events  that 
were  in  the  future,  with  the  announced  purpose  of  con- 
firming their  belief  in  him  when  they  saw  the  fulfillment 
of  these  predictions.  John  13:19,  14:29,  16:4  are  in- 
stances of  this;  and  in  John  2:22  we  read  that  "  when 
he  was  risen  from  the  dead  his  disciples  remembered 
that  he  had  said  this  unto  them,"  i.  e.,  that  he  should 
rise  again,  "  and  they  believed  the  Scripture  and  the 
word  which  Jesus  had  said  unto  them."  In  Acts  1:21,22 
we  see  the  eleven  about  to  fill  the  place  left  vacant  by 
the  death  of  the  traitor,  and  the  only  requisite  named,  if 
not  the  only  one  essential,  was  that  he  who  took  it 
should  have  been  the  constant,  personal  attendant  upon 
the  ministry  of  Jesus,  from  his  first  public  appearance 
till  his  final  ascension,  and  the  only  declared  object  is 
that  he  might,  with  the  eleven,  be  an  unimpeachable 
witness,  not  to  the  teachings  of  Jesus,  nor  to  his  mira- 


124  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 


cle.s,  nor  yet  to  his  claims  of  the  Messiahship,  but  "  of 
his  resurrection  from  the  dead."  Also,  in  Acts  4:33,  we 
read:  "  And  with  great  power  gave  the  apostles  witness 
of  the  resurrection  of  the  Lord  Jesus;"  and  more  than 
thirty  times  the  fact  of  his  resurrection  is  mentioned  by 
the  apostles  as  the  ground  for  belief  in  him,  and  as  the 
confirmation  of  his  claims.  What  was  the  distinctive 
claim  made  by  him?  John  3:16  says  he  came  that  who- 
soever believeth  in  him  "should  not  perish  but  have 
everlasting  life."  John  4:14  says,  "  The  water  that  I 
shall  give  him  shall  be  in  him  a  well  of  water  springing 
up  into  everlasting  life."  In  John  5:21  we  read:  "As 
the  Father  raiseth  up  the  dead  and  giveth  them  life,  so 
the  Son  giveth  life  to  whom  he  will;"  and  in  the  twenty- 
fifth  verse,  "'  the  hour  is  coming  and  now  is>  when  the 
dead  shall  hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  they 
that  hear  shall  live."  (The  son  of  the  widow  of  Nain 
(Luke  7:12),  the  ruler's  daughter  (Mark  5:41),  and  Laza- 
rus (John  11:43),  though  four  days  in  the  grave,  heard 
that  voice  and  lived  again.)  "  For  as  the  Father  hath 
iife  in  himself,  so  hath  he  given  to  the  Son  to  have  life 
in  himself,"  and  "  the  hour  is  coming  when  all  that  are 
n  their  graves  shall  hear  his  voice  and  come  forth." 
And  in  John  6:33:  "For  the  bread  of  God  is  he  which 
came  down  from  heaven  an^  giveth  life  unto  the  world; 
verse  40:  "  And  this  is  the  will  of  him  that  sent 
me,  that  every  one  that  seeth  the  Son  and  believeth  on 
him  may  have  everlasting  life;  and  I  will  raise  him  up  at 
the  last  day;"  verse  47:  "  He  that  believeth  on  me  hath 
everlasting  life;"  verse  51:  "I  am  that  living  bread;  if 
any  man  eat  of  this  bread  he  shall  live  forever;"  John 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  125 

8:51:  "If  a  man  keep  my  saying,  he  shall  never  see 
death;"  John  10:17,  1 8:  "I  lay  down  my  life,  that  I  may 
take  it  again.  No  man  taketh  it  from  me,  but  I  lay  it 
down  of  myself.  I  have  power  to  lay  it  down,  and  I  have 
power  to  take  it  again;"  and  John  1 1:25,  26:  "  I  am  the 
resurrection,  and  the  life;  he  that  believeth  in  me,  though 
he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live."* 

These  quotations  show  the  distinctive  claim  made 
by  Jesus  was  his  supremacy  over  death,  and  his  ability 
not  only  to  restore  this  mortal  life  when  it  has  become 
extinct,  but  to  confer  an  endless  life  upon  those  who  be- 
lieved on  him.  With  these  assertions  of  his  power  over 
death  so  plainly,  repeatedly,  and  openly  made,  what  would 
have  been  the  effect  of  his  remaining  permanently  under 
the  power  of  death  but  a  complete  refutation  of  all  his 
claims  in  this  respect,  and  the  consequent  overthrow  of 
his  authority  as  the  Son  of  God  ?  Supposing  it  had  been 
possible  that  Jesus  could  have  been  holden  of  death 
(which  in  Acts  2:22,  Peter  says  it  was  not),  that  pente- 
costal  sermon  would  never  have  been  preached,  nor  the 
scenes  of  that  day  witnessed;  nor  would  the  name  of  Jesus 
ever  have  fallen  upon  our  ears.  His  failure  to  rise  from 
the  dead  would  have  consigned  his  teaching,  also,  to  the 
grave.  This  it  is  which  makes  the  establishing  of  his 
resurrection  so  essential  in  the  very  beginning  of  the 
apostolic  ministry,  and,  once  demonstrated,  lays  a  foun- 
dation upon  which  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  can  rest 
as  secure  against  all  its  enemies  as  the  very  throne  of 
God.  But  admit  that  the  life  and  death  of  which  he 

*  I  Jno.  5  :  IO,  12. 


126  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

speaks  as  being  the  sole  arbiter  are  not  actual  life  and 
death,  but  the  relations  which  we  sustain  toward  God 
as  his  rational,  accountable  creatures,  and  there  does 
not  appear  to  be  any  necessary  connection  between  his 
resurrection  from  the  grave,  and  the  fulfillment  to  be- 
lievers in  him  of  all  his  promises  to  them. 

If  eternal  life  is  a  changed  moral  nature,  and  new 
relations  toward  God  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  made 
partakers  of  it,  Jesus  might  as  well  have  rested  in  the 
grave  with  David,  and  no  argument  could  have  been 
drawn  from  that  fact  against  his  power  to  give  eternal 
life,  i.  e.t  forgiveness  of  sins,  a  renewed  nature,  and  com- 
plete happiness  to  his  followers.  But  what  says  Paul 
in  I  Cor.  15:17?  "If  Christ  be  not  raised,  your  faith  is 
vain;  ye  are  yet  in  your  sins,  then  they  also  that  are  fallen 
asleep  in  Christ  are  perished."  With  our  definition  of 
"life"  and  "death"  this  conclusion  is  perfectly  logical, 
but,  as  I  think,  with  no  other.  If  eternal  life  means  as 
is  herein  claimed,  a  life  principle  over  which  death  has 
no  power  and  which  insures  the  possessor  an  endless  ex- 
istence, and  Jesus  claimed  not  only  to  possess  this  him- 
self, but  to  be  alone  able  to  bestow  it  upon  whomsoever  he 
would,  and  in  his  own  person  could  not  escape  from  the 
dominion  of  death,  there  certainly  could  be  no  hope  for 
those  who  depended  upon  him  to  rescue  them  from  its 
power;  but,  as  Paul  says,  all  who  had  fallen  asleep  in  this 
hope,  instead  of  ever  having  it  realized,  had  perished. 
Every  one  can  see  the  correctness  of  the  conclusion  he 
draws  from  his  premise,  and  if  the  apostles  were  to  go  on 
winning  men  to  the  acceptance  of  Jesus  as  a  Saviour  from 
death,  and  the  only  source  of  eternal  life,  it  was  abso- 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  127 

lutely  essential  for  them  to  show  that,  having  in  his  own 
person  laid  down  his  life,  he  had  the  power  to  take  it 
again.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  eternal  life  means  forgive- 
ness of  sins,  a  new  heart  and  the  heavenly  felicity  con- 
sequent upon  these  changed  relations  toward  God,  where 
is  the  logical  necessity  between  his  rising  from  the  dead 
and  his  ability  to  confer  these  benefits  upon  his  followers? 

I  do  not  understand  from  his  own  teachings  or  from 
that  of  his  apostles  that  his  rising  from  the  dead  was 
needed  to  satisfy  men  of  his  power  to  perform  these 
offices  for  them.  He  proved  his  power  to  forgive  sins 
by  healing  of  the  palsy,  and  sending  away  whole  the 
man  whose  sins  he  had  forgiven.  Matt.  9  :  6.  His  power 
through  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  renew  the  heart 
was  proved  in  many  instances,  notably  in  the  case  of  the 
woman  who  was  a  sinner  (Luke  7  140,  50),  and  so  far  as 
I  can  see  there  was  no  such  connection  between  his  ris- 
ing from  the  dead  and  his  ability  to  perform  these  offices 
for  those  who  believed  on  him  as  to  render  his  efforts  on 
their  behalf  absolutely  ineffectual  in  case  his  body  had 
remained  in  the  grave.  "  If  he  cannot  deliver  himself 
from  the  power  of  death  he  certainly  cannot  be  depended 
upon  to  deliver  others."  This  is  logical,  but  it  does  not 
necessarily  follow  because  he  cannot  deliver  himself  from 
the  power  of  death  that  he  cannot  do  something  of  an 
entirely  different  character  for  those  who  believe  on  him. 

There  are,  it  seems  to  me,  two  points  at  which  Jesus 
Christ  as  a  Saviour  most  vitally  touches  our  humanity. 
Man  is  under  the  power  of  sin  and  death,  and  utterly 
helpless  in  himself  to  escape  from  either.  Jesus  Christ 
in  his  own  experience  demonstrates  to  men  his  power 


128  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 


over  both  before  he  asks  men  to  rely  upon  him  to  un- 
dertake for  them.  The  wilderness  of  Judea,  and  the 
tomb  of  Joseph,  the  beginning  and  the  consummation 
of  his  earthly  ministry,  demonstrate  his  power  to  save 
from  both  sin  and  death;  and  the  record  of  his  daily  life, 
while  for  three  years  he  walked  this  sin-stricken  earth, 
the  healing,  loving,  sympathizing  man  of  sorrows,  equally 
demonstrates  his  willingness  to  do  so.  There  is  one 
other  passage  collaterally  significant  in  i  Cor.  15:50: 
"  Now  this  I  say,  brethren,  that  flesh  and  blood  cannot 
inherit  the  kingdom  of  God."  The  term  "flesh  and 
blood"  I  take  to  mean  the  life  derived  from  Adam 
through  successive  generations,  with  all  its  possibilities 
and  limitations;  and  this  I  gather  from  the  connec- 
tion in  which  it  is  used  in  the  following  places,  which 
are  the  only  ones  in  which  I  find  it  used  in  the  Bible. 
In  Matt.  16:17  our  Lord  tells  Peter  that  his  knowledge 
of  his  divine  nature  and  misson  did  not  come,  through 
any  human  agency,  either  within  or  outside  himself. 
The  language  is,  "Flesh  and  blood  hath  not  revealed  it 
to  thee,  but  my  Father  which  is  in  Heaven." 

When  Paul  was  commissioned  to  preach  the  gospel 
he  did  not  take  counsel  with  his  fellow-men,  or  ask  in- 
struction from  them  regarding  what  he  should  teach.  He 
said,  "  I  conferred  not  with  flesh  and  blood."  Gal.  1 : 16. 
In  chapter  6:12  he  says,  "We  wrestle  not  with  flesh  and 
blood,"  evidently  referring  to  human  agencies  as  con- 
trasted with  superhuman.  And  Heb.  2: 14  declares  that 
when  the  Son  of  God  assumed  the  work  of  our  redemption, 
he  took  upon  himself  our  humanity,  or  as  it  is  in  the  text: 
"Forasmuch  then  as  the  children  are  partakers  of  flesh 


THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  129 

and  blood,  he  also  himself  likewise  took  part  of  the 
same."  It  seems  certain  from  the  connections  in  which 
the  above  quoted  verses  are  found,  that  the  meaning  of 
flesh  and  blood  is  as  above  given,  or,  to  state  it  more 
concisely,  "human  nature."  What  then  does  Paul  mean 
when  he  says  that  human  nature  or  flesh  and  blood  can- 
not inherit  the  kingdom  of  God?  He  is  not  referring 
merely,  nor  as  I  think  primarily,  to  man's  moral  nature 
as  unfitted  for  the  place;  but,  to  his  organic  being,  which, 
in  its  constitution,  debars  him  from  any  participation  in 
this  kingdom,  which  is  an  everlasting  kingdom  as  well 
as  a  righteous  one.  "  But  unto  the  Son  he  saith  "  not 
only  "a  scepter  of  righteousness  is  the  scepter  of  thy 
kingdom,"  but,  as  well,  "  Thy  throne,  O  God,  is  forever 
and  ever."  Heb.  I  :  8.  "  And  the  kingdom  and  the 
dominion,  and  the  greatness  of  the  kingdom  under  the 
whole  heaven  shall  be  given  to  the  people  of  the  saints 
of  the  Most  High,  whose  kingdom  is  an  everlasting 
kingdom."  Dan.  7  :  27.  "  Thy  kingdom  is  an  everlast- 
ing kingdom."  Ps.  145  :  13.  "And  he  shall  reign  over 
the  house  of  Jacob  forever,  and  of  his  kingdom  there 
shall  be  no  end."  Luke  I  133.  "For  so  an  entrance 
shall  be  ministered  unto  you  abundantly  unto  the  ever- 
lasting kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ." 
2  Pet.  I  :  11.  "The  kingdoms  of  this  world  have  be- 
come the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ  [his 
anointed  ones  ?]  and  he  shall  reign  forever  and  ever." 
Rev.  11:15. 

The  above  quotations  are  perhaps  unnecessary  as 
warrant  for  the  assertion  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
spoken  of  by  Paul  is  unending  in  duration.  Not  only  is 


130  THE  WORLD  TO  COME. 

it  unending,  it  is  also  supreme.  No  being  can  become 
a  citizen  of  this  kingdom  owing  the  slightest  allegiance 
to  any  besides  its  rightful  Head.  Not  only  must  the 
bond-servant  of  sin  be  freed  from  the  rule  of  his  master, 
but  the  tyrant  death  also  must  relinquish  all  claims  upon 
his  subjects  before  they  can  be  translated  into  the  king- 
dom of  God's  dear  Son.  It  is  the  subjection  we  are 
under  to  death,  I  think,  of  which  Paul  is  here  speaking 
as  debarring  us  from  entering  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 
The  whole  context  warrants  the  belief  that  fhis  is  so. 
Our  human  nature  which,  because  of  its  subjection  to 
death,  cannot  inherit  this  everlasting  kingdom,  is  to  be 
redeemed  from  the  dominion  of  death  by  the  begetting 
which  is  from  above,  is  to  be  endowed  with  eternal  life, 
and  so  capacitated  for  a  citizenship  in  Heaven.  This 
throne  which  is  forever  and  ever,  shall  extend  the  scepter 
over  no  subject  not  as  enduring  as  itself;  and  all  the 
citizens  of  this  everlasting  kingdom  shall  bs  everlasting 
also. 

These  imperfectly  expressed  thoughts  and  poorly 
arranged  arguments  are  given  to  the  public  in  the  hope 
that  trained  minds,  and  able  pens,  may  be  enlisted  for 
the  confirmation  of  the  views  herein  advocated,  or  for 
their  complete  refutation.  All  that  the  writer  desires 
is  that  their  establishment  or  overthrow  shall  be  by  the 
word  of  God,  and  not  by  the  word  of  man. 


14  DAY  USE 

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